Michigan St adds epic drive to program’s memorable moments

Michigan State and Iowa gave it their all in the Big Ten Championship on Saturday in Indianapolis.

Michigan State’s final 22-play, 82-yard touchdown drive was the longest march – in terms of plays – by any team in college football this season. Michael Geiger’s 47-yard field goal with less than a minute to play in the third quarter gave the Spartans their first lead since the first quarter at 9-6.

Quarterback Connor Cook led the Spartans on a 22-play drive that set up Scott’s score on third down.

Michigan State earned its second conference title in three years and will chase its first national championship since splitting the title with Notre Dame in 1966. The Spartans have a potential first-round NFL Draft pick at quarterback for this run, and Cook will have a few weeks to heal from a shoulder injury that kept him out of the win against Ohio State on November 21.

It wasn’t a game, it was a grind and for most of the showdown between Iowa and Michigan State, it was a defensive masterpiece on both sides.

Big Ten football is all about toughness. We won a lot of football games in the last three years.

“We were confident right up to the last play that we’d make a stop down there”, Ferentz said. Stanford will likely play in the Rose Bowl. But as far as drama and determination and (Mark) Dantonio, the drive was a metaphor for what the coach has built in nine seasons.

Geiger missed wide left from 52 when the Spartans’ ensuing possession stalled, but the ball was returned to Michigan State hands when Beathard was intercepted for the first time in 155 attempts dating to Iowa’s October 17 game at Northwestern. However after a late comeback, Michigan State is headed to the College Football Playoff.

“We’re going to play on edge”, Dantonio said.

But anyone who believed Michigan State dead after going down by just four points with plenty of time left on the clock obviously hasn’t watched many Spartan games this season. “We were focused the entire time and knew we were going to get it”. He also gets another $150,000 for taking his team to the College Football Playoff and could escalate that bonus to $250,000 by winning the national title. “We felt like we were the tougher team”.

To get here, the Spartans won six games by a touchdown or less. Regular-season losses to OR and Ohio State cost Michigan State a shot at the 2014 Big Ten Championship and a place in the inaugural CFP.

“That was the drive to win the game and be champions”, said Cook, who became the first two-time recipient of the Big Ten Championship Game Most Valuable Player award.

“We still have games to play and I think everyone has that in the back of their head”, Colquhoun said.

COTTON COMEBACK: Michigan State’s comeback in the Cotton Bowl last January was the school’s biggest ever in a postseason game. We didn’t have any huge runs the whole game, but you saw the Iowa front seven get more and more exhausted, and that’s what fuels us.

The four teams in line for the playoffs appear to be Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma and Michigan State.

SAN DIEGO ST. 27, AIR FORCE 24 (at San Diego) – The Aztecs’ Donny Hageman kicked a 46-yard field goal with 5:10 to go to win the Mountain West title.