Junior quarterback Kirk Cousins prepares to hand off the ball Saturday night in Spartan Stadium during the game against Notre Dame. Cousins threw for a total of 245 yards and had two touchdown passes.
All Aaron Bates did was react.
As his team lined up for the potential game-tying field goal, the senior punter reacted normally to the big play call, reacted to the chasing defenders and threw an exceptional pass to senior tight end Charlie Gantt, who broke open, and finished the 29-yard touchdown play that gave MSU a 34-31 win over Notre Dame.
“I wasn’t really thinking, I just kind of reacted,” Bates said. “I just threw it and as soon as it left my hand, I was hoping that I didn’t overthrow it.”
The call, which was organized by Dantonio and the coaching staff, caught everyone in the stadium by surprise and came with the Spartans trailing by three in overtime.
Dantonio said he intended to run the play at some point Saturday, but the opportunity never arose until the Spartans were trying to attempt a 46-yard field goal trailing to tie the game.
He gave the play call to Bates, who accepted it casually, and watched it executed to precision, as did Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly, who was left shell-shocked.
“With a 47-yarder, I would have hated to have put that kind of pressure on (sophomore kicker Dan Conroy) and us come up short with it,” Dantonio said. “He’s very capable of it, obviously. The last kick of the game against ND, in overtime, to tie it. And I thought that we had a good chance to win. We had that play called 200 times (in practice) and we scored touchdowns.”
It didn’t go exactly the way it was intended to, as freshman running back Le’Veon Bell was expected to get the ball, but he inadvertently became a decoy when he ran into two Notre Dame players and let Gantt go free.
A former high school quarterback, Bates’ pass was on target, and capped a game that saw the Spartans fight back never give up despite being in trouble late.
“Wow, what a football game,” Dantonio said. “We executed. Gantt sneaks out there and gets separation and makes the catch. All of that doesn’t work without execution.”
The emotional scene at the end of the game was the exact opposite of last season’s game against Notre Dame, when players hung their heads after junior quarterback Kirk Cousins threw an interception with time winding down in MSU’s 33-30 loss.
It appeared headed for the same course Saturday with the Spartans trailing by a touchdown in the fourth quarter and Notre Dame’s red-hot offense on the field in the fourth quarter.
But MSU’s defense, which had surrendered touchdowns on Notre Dame’s previous three drives and was being run ragged by the Fighting Irish’s passing attack, rallied and forced a three-and-out and a turnover on Notre Dame’s last two possessions of regulation to set up junior quarterback Kirk Cousins’ 24-yard touchdown strike to junior wide receiver B.J. Cunningham to tie the game and eventually force overtime.
“This is a difficult loss, obviously,” Kelly said. “It came down to one play, which MSU executed, and we did not. This was a game that went back-and-forth, it was a hard-fought game, but we came up short.”
Bell led a stout MSU running game that accounted for 203 yards and followed up where it left off the two previous weeks.
He finished with 114 yards and a touchdown, but it was sophomore Edwin Baker’s 56-yard touchdown early in the third quarter that went down as the most memorable.
After entering the locker room tied at 7-7 at halftime, the second half couldn’t have been more unscripted.
Following Baker’s touchdown run, Notre Dame responded with a 10-yard pass from Dayne Crist to tight end Kyle Rudolph to tie the game.
MSU answered with Bell’s 16-yard touchdown run, before the Fighting Irish had an answer once again on Crist’s pass to wide receiver Theo Riddick, who led Notre Dame with 128 yards receiving.
Notre Dame scored on quarterback Dayne Crist’s 24-yard pass to Michael Floyd with 12:30 remaining in the game to take a 28-21 lead, but MSU responded with an improvised touchdown pass from Cousins to Cunningham with 7:43 to play.
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Cousins finished 23-for-33 for 245 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.
Neither team converted on its final drives of regulation, and Notre Dame was held to a field goal on its first drive in overtime.
The fake field goal touchdown pass will go down as one more exciting finish in a rivalry that has seen plenty of them in the past decade.
“Like we said all along, we needed one big momentum play,” Dantonio said. “We just didn’t know when it would come. I don’t really know where to start or to end. But it was a big night for the Spartans.”
