These words have been applied to the No. 5 MSU football team’s dream season, which continued in the right direction after Saturday’s dramatic 35-27 comeback win.
Trailing by 17 in the second quarter and 10 in the fourth, the Spartans — for the second straight week — began piling on touchdowns late in the game to blitz past the Wildcats.

Through the first six games of the season, MSU’s fortune was earned on the backs of its linemen and running backs, gritted out in convincing victories against stout opponents. But after back-to-back games where the Spartans looked flat then responded by crushing their opponents, it’s clear there’s some luck on the Spartans’ side, too.

To be clear, MSU hasn’t been all lucky. It has made for its own fortune, converting big plays and having a distinct advantage over its opponents at the line of scrimmage. But after winning a game Saturday in which it was outrushed, 170-105, gave up five plays of more than 20 yards and played from behind most of the game, it’s hard to discount the element of luck in the Spartans’ magic this season.

Nearly every time head coach Mark Dantonio decided to roll the dice Saturday, it paid off. Senior punter Aaron Bates’ fake-punt pass to redshirt freshman wide receiver Bennie Fowler set up an MSU touchdown to senior wide receiver Mark Dell on the next play.

Fowler’s reverse yielded a third-quarter touchdown when MSU was struggling to get going on offense. The exception was junior Keith Nichol’s insertion at the quarterback position on a third-down play in the third quarter that produced only three yards.

Nevertheless, Dantonio’s trick plays have worked like magic so far this season.

From the “Little Giants” play vs. Notre Dame to Kirk Cousins’ lining up at wide receiver against Michigan, getting the ball and delivering it to Nichol for 42 yards, the Spartans have made big plays at crucial moments this season.

It’s been the genius of Dantonio and the execution of players like Bates, Nichol and Fowler, who don’t necessarily get called on much but have executed at the right times.

Execution, not luck, is why the Spartans’ big plays have worked. But when you roll the dice multiple times, it’s bound to be unfavorable at some point. The Spartans are lucky their big plays have worked as well or better than they were drawn up, but that’s what it takes to win championships.

No matter how much talent a team has, it takes some luck to go through the college football season undefeated, as previous national champions can attest. The 2002 Ohio State football team that won the national championship trailed Purdue 6-3 in the fourth quarter of a November game, and decided to throw a deep ball on fourth down and one that was converted into a 37-yard touchdown.

The 2007 national-championship-winning LSU Tigers had confusion between the coaches on the sidelines with time winding down, but threw a 22-yard touchdown pass with one second left to defeat Auburn, 30-24, in an October game.

It takes a combination of luck and good play to earn a trip to the national championship, and MSU appears to have fortune on its side at this point in the season. Given the difficulty of winning back-to-back games against Wisconsin and U-M, and the way the Spartans have avoided a letdown against capable opponents, the Spartans safely can be called a “Team of Destiny,” but that label doesn’t always end in success.

Last season, Iowa appeared headed for a national championship after starting the season 9-0, but fell in back-to-back games to finish the season 11-2. The Spartans have started slowly against Illinois and Northwestern, but have overcome it by making big second-half plays to secure victory.

The margin for error is less in Saturday’s game against Iowa (3:30 p.m., ABC), which is why Spartan fans shouldn’t get overwhelmed in the “Team of Destiny” view. Fortunes easily can change, even if the Spartans make all the right play calls as they have, and there’s a reason why not more than one or two — or three — teams finish 12-0 in a season.

But if MSU can execute like it has all season, it won’t have to rely on any trick plays or late comebacks to win the rest of their games — it will simply do it on the play of its lines and other position players. With Saturday’s game against Iowa followed by winnable games, the dreams of MSU players and coaches are within reach.

The Spartans can take comfort in knowing that their destiny is in their own hands and that their fate will come down to whether or not they can execute.

But as the Spartans continue to earn wins down the stretch, it doesn’t hurt to know they’ve had the right plays so far.

Jeff Kanan is a State News football reporter. He can be reached at kananjef@msu.edu.