Jeff Smoker is a wide-eyed 19-year-old freshman.
Saturday he grew up.
With MSU’s fate resting in his right arm, Smoker, playing for injured starter junior quarterback Ryan Van Dyke, delivered a perfect strike to Herb Haygood on fourth-and-10 with 1:48 remaining in the fourth quarter.
And the rest was Haygood history.
When the junior wide receiver crossed the goal line 68 yards later to give the Spartans the conclusive 27-21 score over visiting Notre Dame, Smoker confirmed he possesses maturity and poise well beyond his teenage years.
“They blitzed and left (Haygood) one-on-one and I hit him right out of his break,” Smoker said. “I was kind of expecting (a blitz) because it had been working for them all game.”
There wasn’t a doubt in his teammates’ minds that Smoker was ready for such heroics.
“He still had fire in his eyes on the last play, and they called a pass play, and you knew he was going to make something happen,” said sophomore running back T.J. Duckett, who gained 142 yards on the ground on 26 rushes.
But the day wasn’t all smiles for the freshman quarterback from Manheim, Pa. He made two costly mistakes in the fourth quarter - a fumble and an interception - before throwing the pivotal toss to Haygood.
After Irish defensive tackle Darrell Campbell recovered Smoker’s fumble at MSU’s 12-yard line with 12:38 left in the game and the Spartans clinging to a 20-14 lead, MSU’s defense loomed large and performed a goal-line stand of historic proportions. Junior defensive lineman Josh Shaw ended the threat by tackling Irish quarterback Matt LoVecchio on the Spartans’ 3-yard line for no gain on fourth-and-one.
Shaw led the Spartans in tackles with 11, including two for losses.
“It was a great defensive stand. We had (practiced) a lot of those plays that they ran,” head coach Bobby Williams said.
Both blunders occurred inside the Spartans’ 15-yard line, but Notre Dame was only able to capitalize on the interception with a 2-yard touchdown run by tailback Julius Jones. The one-play drive gave the Irish a 21-20 lead with 7:59 left in the fourth.
Williams spoke of the courage Smoker showed coming back from those miscues.
“I was really proud of Jeff Smoker,” Williams said. “Jeff made two huge mistakes in the game and the kid came back and they ran an all-out blitz and he hung in there and threw the football. That’s probably the biggest play I’ve seen here in a long time. You could see it in his eyes that he was going to come back the next series.”
Smoker credited his teammates for keeping faith in him and enabling him to execute the final drive.
“They were really helpful, actually, after I threw that interception my teammates said, ‘Don’t let it get to you. We have a game to win. You’re still our quarterback, you have to come back and you have to bring us back to victory,’” Smoker said. “None of them were down on me at all, and they were a great help.”
Smoker completed 12 of 24 passes for 181 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. He was also sacked six times.
Haygood, who made the biggest play of his Spartan career, said the team remains confident at the end of close games.
“We’re a fourth-quarter team,” Haygood said. “If it comes down to the fourth, were not going to lose.”
The Spartans will take their 3-0 record back to Spartan Stadium on Saturday against Northwestern, which is coming off an 47-44 double-overtime upset of Wisconsin.
Jeff Karzen can be reached at karzenje@msu.edu.
