The suspension not only prevented Cunningham, Dell and 10 other MSU players from traveling to the Spartans’ Valero Alamo Bowl loss to Texas Tech, but it also kept them out of the Skandaralis Football Building last winter when the rest of the team was working out together.

“That bothered (Cunningham and Dell),” junior quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “It was tougher on them than it was on anybody. No one was hurt more not being to play in the bowl game than those guys.”

Missing the bowl game was hard, but Cunningham and Dell both said not being able to practice with the other receivers was just as tough. Cunningham said he felt like he “had to play football,” and Dell said not being able to catch passes or run routes “would drive me crazy.”

Instead of simply accepting the fact they weren’t allowed to participate in football-related activities, the two receivers, along with Cousins, found a way to work around it.

After Cousins finished up team workouts, he would meet up with Dell and Cunningham to throw passes. Sometimes they met in a church gym. Other times, Cousins and Cunningham would meet Dell at his alma mater Farmington Hills High School, or they would get together at one of MSU’s IM buildings.

While working on their techniques and route running was a primary reason for the offseason workouts, Cunningham said there was a much more fundamental reason behind the meetings for him and Dell.

“We just wanted to play football,” Cunningham said. “Once something is taken away from you, you don’t want it to happen again. We just had to suck it up and find somewhere to play ball until all of this died down.”

There was nothing fancy about the trio’s winter workouts.

Often, they would have to work around church league basketball schedules and scramble to find gyms that were available. When they did find a place and time to throw and catch passes, it was far from being a complex set of drills you might see at an actual practice.

“It was just like, ‘I’m running to halfcourt and I’m going to cut across the middle,’” Cunningham said. “We were just drawing up plays in the sand like street football. Nobody was guarding us, we were just catching the football.”

Regardless of the structure of workouts, all three players involved said they paid dividends when this season rolled around. It showed on the field, as Cunningham and Dell combined to be Cousins’ go-to-receivers with a combined 99 catches for 1,372 yards and 15 touchdowns on the way to a Big Ten championship season.

However, Dell said the workouts had a bigger reward than timing on routes or anything else on the field.

“It was just forming that brotherly bond we got now,” Dell said. “I feel like that was the most important thing.”

Cousins said he knew that meeting in the offseason would have that effect, which is why he was willing to put in the extra time after his practices with the team. For Cousins to go out of his way to do something for them when he didn’t have to really brought the three even closer together, both Cunningham and Dell said.

“I thank (Cousins) all the time for taking his time out to come to the gym or finding the gym,” Dell said. “To see him put forth that effort made, it just made me want to go that much harder to see somebody that cares about my situation.”

Now, Cunningham, Dell, Cousins and the rest of the No. 7 Spartans (11-1) are preparing for a New Year’s Day matchup with No. 15 Alabama (9-3) in the Capital One Bowl.

As a senior who’s gone through so much in the last year, Dell said all of the work last winter when he and Cunningham were looking for places to catch passes has been worth it. And if he and MSU can pull out a win against the Crimson Tide, he said it will be a perfect way to end his up-and-down career.

“There’s no better way to go out than playing the defending champions,” Dell said. “To win this last game, I can’t think of anything better.”