South Bend, Ind. - Something strange happened during a third-quarter TV timeout at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday. You actually had to be sitting in the sun-drenched stadium to realize it had occurred, feeling the exact moment when the pendulum would swing toward either an MSU blowout or a Notre Dame comeback. It's a shame you folks at home missed it.
Matt Trannon had just taken a screen pass from Drew Stanton to the house, giving the Green and White a 21-point lead. The collective stomachs of the Notre Dame faithful officially had been sucker-punched. The place was dead silent. My pal Vinny and I were already predicting how ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso would shortchange the big MSU victory in enemy territory. I guess you shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch.
The air cooled slightly and the setting sun cast a sharp ray of light on Touchdown Jesus, causing a few beads of perspiration to rise to the surface of the pigskin savior's broad forehead. He wiped the sweat away with a rag and rang it out over the stadium, squeezing a few droplets of pure liquid drama onto the field: a furious Irish comeback was in the works.
And I mean furious. The kind of comeback that turned my five-day beard into a 70-year-old's graying whiskers. The kind of comeback that the Spartans - if the last few years have taught us anything - aren't supposed to survive.
The stadium gradually rose from utter quietness to an overwhelming roar. It was déjà vu - suddenly we were back in Ann Arbor, a year prior, watching a seemingly insurmountable lead be easily vanquished by a team that had transformed from a rolling trolley to a roaring steam engine.
But something happened to the MSU football team between this season and the last. All the lessons learned in heart-breaking losses add up. Some dumb plays were made, yet they overcame those mistakes and made the plays that win football games.
The Spartans defense didn't just bend, or even break. It was torn to shreds. So they slapped some duct tape on the splintered pieces and made a final stand, stopping the Fighting Irish on fourth-and-inches midway through the fourth quarter, forcing a three-and-out on the next series, then holding the Fighting Irish to a field goal in the first overtime stanza. The Spartans defense made three gutsy stands when they were absolutely exhausted.
Still, it felt like MSU was delaying the inevitable. All Spartans fans could do was place their hand over their hearts, pledge "In Drew we trust" and hope the team would find a way.
Stanton dashed along the right side of the Spartans line and delivered a perfectly-timed option pitch to Jason Teague. Teague scampered past a Kyle Brown block and hit paydirt. Game over. It was the culmination of everything MSU players and fans had endured in the last few seasons. We've seen heartbreak and blowouts against our most hated rivals. We've watched close games squandered away by the mistakes that mark a team that can't finish. It's been a long road, but MSU football finally seems to be hitting its stride.
Maybe that's what makes football, especially a college overtime game, so special: the idea that there is a distance that must be traveled before victory. A blue-and-gold wall was in the way. In a close football game, you have to fight for every inch.
MSU had every right to stab that giant "S" flag into the hallowed 50-yard line of Notre Dame Stadium. The Spartans earned it. When you survive a blizzard on the way to the top of the mountain, you leave your mark at the summit.
Notre Dame fans are undoubtedly going to call the MSU football team classless and disrespectful for pulling a Neil Armstrong on their sacred turf. How does one avoid such situations?
"There's only one thing. Win. That's it. That's the bottom line. Win."
Ethan Conley is a State News staff writer and can be reached at conleyet@msu.edu.
