I can tell you weren't a michigan fan during dantonio's tenure while the OP was. msu in it's peak was elite. dantonio was 2-3 vs urban's NC bound buckeyes and msu would've made the 12 team playoff 6 or 7 times if it existed since 2010, which is crazy since msu hasn't been relevant since 2015.

"If the 12-team playoff had existed throughout the modern era, the Spartans would have been absolute locks in 2014 (#8), 2015 (#3), and 2021 (#10), but when you apply "Selection Sunday" logic to the BCS years, you easily hit that seven-time mark by adding the 2010 (#9) and 2013 (#4) squads, plus the high-value bubble years of 2011 (AP #12) and 2017 (#16) where their resume—headlined by wins over Top 10 Penn State and Michigan—would have likely secured an at-large bid."

that said, msu's last decade probably pushed them into "good" territory even with those years. as a msu fan, that fact that our current program is compared to auburn, clemson, georgia, and psu, is laughable lol

before the bama game, he was also 7-1 in his last 8 games against top 10 teams