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9-year-old Spartans fan pens heart-warming letter of encouragement to Brian Lewerke, Mark Dantonio and MSU team

Teddy Rydquist

By Teddy Rydquist

Published:

Stuck in a five-game losing streak, the 4-6 Michigan State Spartans received a touching vote of confidence from a interesting source on Wednesday: a nine-year-old Westerville, Ohio resident named Fraser Hartnell.

Spanning the course of four days, Hartnell penned a letter offering support to head coach Mark Dantonio and redshirt senior quarterback Brian Lewerke, recommended his preferred uniform combination, and presented fans with a few reasons for optimism regarding the 2020 season.

Fraser’s father, Dr. Ben Hartnell, shared the letter on Twitter:

Winning a BCS National Championship as the defensive coordinator for the Ohio State Buckeyes under Jim Tressel in 2002, Dantonio began his head coaching career with the Cincinnati Bearcats in 2004.

Overseeing Cincinnati’s transition from Conference USA to the Big East, he won 18 games in three years and guided the Bearcats to two bowl appearances, departing for Michigan State before the second one – the 2007 International Bowl against the Western Michigan Broncos at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.

The winningest coach in Spartans history at 111-57, Dantonio’s teams have captured three B1G titles (2010, 2013, 2015) and appeared in the College Football Playoff in the 2015 season.

Since the beginning of the 2016 season, however, the program has fallen on difficult times. Michigan State is just 24-24 over the last four seasons and cannot lose another game if they want to avoid missing a bowl game for the second time in that span.

Racing out to a 4-1 start, the 2019 season had the looks of a promising one for Spartan fans. Set in motion on a Saturday night in Columbus in early-October, Michigan State has now lost five straight games, most recently a 44-10 defeat at the hands of their in-state rival, the Michigan Wolverines.

Looking to get back on the preferred side of the ledger, the Spartans will travel to Piscataway to battle the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (2-8) on Saturday at 12:00PM ET on FS1.

 

Teddy Rydquist

A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Rydquist has been contributing to Saturday Down South and Saturday Tradition since 2019. He can be found on Twitter @TeddyRydquist.