East Lansing — Anyone acquainted with Michigan State would have appreciated Tuesday’s campus portrait.
It was a humid summer day in East Lansing, the kind that so often marks early September. Various flavors of tree leaves were tinged with yellow. And although the sun was hot and heavy, its rays had begun to bend as summer wanes and autumn draws near.
Walking along Shaw Lane’s sidewalks were college kids in shorts and T-shirts. Dormitories and apartments were filling. Books were being purchased.
Classes — and football — are about to commence.
Mark Dantonio, dressed semi-formally and wearing a sharp silver-gray sport coat, stood at a podium inside Spartan Stadium’s north end.