Michigan State Football's Mount Rushmore: Our Picks

About two weeks ago we revealed the ten candidates for Michigan State football's Mount Rushmore. If you need a reminder, here's a link to the page. The reveal of who the fans voted on will be aired tonight at 6 PM Eastern on the BTN, and SpartanDan and I had a couple thoughts on it. First, SpartanDan:

Caveat that anyone who played before 2003, I know little more than the blurbs that were posted in the original thread.

I went with:

Bubba Smith and George Webster - the two iconic players from the back-to-back national championships. I'd rather spread out the recognition, but you can't leave out a guy who got the fans to chant "Kill, Bubba, Kill!" or the guy who was arguably better than him (and got his jersey retired).

Darqueze Dennard - the 2013 defense has to have a representative, and who better than a corner that drew comparisons to Deion Sanders stat-wise? Throwing to his man was a wasted down.

Lorenzo White - Statistically, likely the best running back ever at MSU, and another Rose Bowl winner. Could argue Percy Snow here instead, but we've got to have one offensive player on there at least.

My rationale is very similar to SpartanDan's. First, I feel like you need a player from each of MSU's Rose Bowl eras. First, the latest one. It's either Dennard or Greg Jones for that, and even though Jones was the first great defensive player from the Mark Dantonio era, I feel Dennard was a higher quality player, and did take part in that Rose Bowl. Dennard gets my first pick.

Second, the Perles era. It's either Percy Snow or Lorenzo White, and this is a real doozy -- do you take Snow, who was the first player to win both the Butkus and Lombardi awards in the same season, or White, MSU's all time leader in rushing yards and touchdowns, on top of being the first Big Ten running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a season and was the highest ever finisher in the Heisman for MSU? Sorry Percy, but I think it's Lorenzo here. He gets my second pick.

Now, the Duffy era. Obviously, I was not around for this, but we have four players to choose from: Bubba Smith, George Webster, Gene Washington, and Brad Van Pelt. Tough, but the arguments by a couple commenters for Webster swayed me -- he was the team MVP in 1966 after all.

Lastly, that leaves one spot. I feel that the Munn era needs to be represented in some way, and who better to do that than MSU's first all American, Don Coleman. He was MSU's first All-American (although it was actually MAC's first All-American, if we want to be technical about names and such) and the first MSU player to have his number retired.

So there are my picks: Coleman, Webster, White, Dennard. What do you think?