Dantonio had talked frequently during the preseason about how his team would deal with adversity.

Now here it was in full bloom and the players were looking to their new coach for guidance.

"My wife and I always talk about how when something bad happens, it's a test of how you're going to handle things," Dantonio said. "Was I going to fall apart? Was I going to be so down that I couldn't do my job or think that we had made the wrong decision in coming here? That never went through our head. We just stayed the course."

The veteran players knew how Rick Minter, their previous coach, would have reacted. They knew he would have been loud and animated and would have used some colorful language to make his point.

They didn't know what Dantonio would do, but based on what they had seen of him so far, they thought they had a pretty good idea.

"I was wondering how he would react, but since he got here, from Day 1 he's had a belief in us," said senior offensive tackle Clint Stickdorn. "That's been the huge factor in us turning things around. The players believe in him as well as he believes in us."

In some respects, this was Dantonio's first true test as a head coach, and judging by the way UC has responded with consecutive victories over Memphis and Texas Christian, he passed easily.

The Bearcats (4-4, 2-3 Conference USA) play at No. 21 Southern Miss (5-1, 4-0) on Saturday afternoon having resurrected their season. They need two victories in their last three games to become eligible for one of five bowl games affiliated with Conference USA.

Dantonio was careful not to blame anyone in particular for what had happened. Instead, he sought to assure his players and fellow coaches that they were all in this together, drawing from his experience working under Ohio State coach Jim Tressel and others.

His approach was to methodically go about the business of fixing what had gone wrong - primarily poor tackling, too many turnovers and a lack of emotion on game day.

"I just went back to work and kept things in perspective and said, 'We've got to get better,' " Dantonio said. " 'We've got to do these things to win. We can't lose our team.' That's critical. When you're down like that, you've got to find ways to re-gather everybody and not allow people to splinter away and get on their own agendas.

"I don't think you can point the finger at people and say, 'This is why we lost, because of you.' "

It wasn't only Dantonio who held things together. So did his assistant coaches and the players themselves.

But Dantonio set the tone.

"He basically said it's a five-game season now," said punter Chet Ervin. "We control our destiny. What do we want to do now? We could have just given up there. I think a lot of players did draw strength from him. ... You never know how coaches and players will respond to something like that. Everybody handled it in a really good manner."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com