With the news that nine MSU football players will be charged with assault and conspiracy due to an incident at a dorm hall on Nov. 22, it’s clear that coach Mark Dantonio faces his toughest challenge yet as Spartan head coach. Loved for his competitiveness, Dantonio put an indelible imprint on the MSU program when, after responding to former U-M running back Mike Hart’s “little brother” jibe by responding that “pride comes before the fall,” Dantonio ran off two straight wins over Rich Rodriguez and U-M.

Admittedly, that’s not hard these days. But in Dantonio, MSU thought it had found its football answer to Tom Izzo, a hard-nosed coach that demanded — and frequently got — excellence. However, the program stuttered to a 6-6 finish this year, ending their season with a devastating 42-14 loss to then-No. 14 Penn State, and with this latest news, East Lansing is wondering whether Dantonio has lost control of his program.

For my money, Dantonio is a good coach who has been put into a bad situation by the actions of his players, specifically, running back Glenn Winston. Winston, who recently served prison time for the assault of an MSU hockey player, was given a second chance by Dantonio over the loud objections of some MSU fans. At the time, I liked the move, and I still do. College kids make mistakes, and for Winston — who according to receiver Mark Dell’s father, grew up in a bad environment — showing some compassion and working to instill discipline could work wonders in helping turn his life around and becoming a successful football player, and more importantly, a successful person.

However, after a somewhat successful year that was cut short due to an ACL injury, Winston was involved in an altercation at an off-campus nightclub. According to reports, Winston was dancing with the girlfriend of his assailant, who responded thoughtfully and rationally by decking him. Police were called, but no charges were filed. Winston apparently did not throw any punches at the time. He saved that for later. After the football team’s year-end banquet, Winston gathered up some of his friends from the team and went to locate his attacker across the street in Rather Hall, leading to the fracas that’s resulted in these charges.

For many of the players involved, I wonder how much of it was wanting to stick up for a friend. Take a look at it from their shoes — if your friend had been attacked and humiliated the night before and wanted to go after the guy, would you have his back?

This isn’t to say that it’s the right thing to do, obviously. Someone needed to be the voice of reason, and from all accounts, nobody was. Sadly, because of it, Winston and another player have been dismissed from the team and their chance to get a quality education to improve their lot in life. Eight others have been suspended for Michigan State’s Alamo Bowl matchup with Texas Tech, putting an already thin team under even-greater strain against one of the best pass defenses in the nation.

But in the end, the person this ends up hurting most is Dantonio. He put trust in Winston, gave him a second chance when no one else would and acted like you’d hope a father-figure would for someone in need. For his effort, he got multiple assault and battery charges against a number of his players, a black eye for his program and what figures to be a crushing bowl loss. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Dantonio better own stock in asphalt.