It’s been a gut-wrenching season for head coach Pat Fitzgerald and the Wildcats, who started off the year as the No. 22 team in the country, similarly to how the Spartans began the 2012 campaign with a No. 13 ranking and later stumbled to a 7-6 finish.

But with the Spartans (9-1, 6-0) just one win away from clinching a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game which could come on the road Saturday against the Wildcats (noon, ESPN), head coach Mark Dantonio said he expects a competitive game with Northwestern, as has been the case throughout his tenure.

“(Northwestern has had) an opportunity to win every football game. So you have to look at that aspect,” Dantonio said. “I think the understanding is by our football team, I hope we’re mature enough to understand this, is that every single game we’ve had with them has been a tough football game in the last six years.

“I don’t expect anything different this week.”

It took the 2012 Spartans until the final regular season game to clinch bowl eligibility, where they ended up defeating TCU in the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. And it’s not a completely different situation than the one the Wildcats are facing this year.

The Wildcats need to win their final two games against MSU and on the road against Illinois, respectively, to earn bowl eligibility — a daunting task for any team.

Senior linebacker Max Bullough spent last season in Northwestern’s shoes, being a leader on a team that spent the year trying to salvage respectability but fell short of goals set prior to the season.

Bullough said the Spartans need to use the lessons of last season to avoid a letdown against a hunger Northwestern team this weekend.

“Northwestern’s a good football team, they’re a good football program,” Bullough said. “They got a great head coach and I have a lot of respect for the players at Northwestern. We know they’re going to come to play, come to fight as they always have. We know what it feels like to be like that so they’re going to come out fighting.”

Whether it’s been Northwestern’s late losses — they’ve lost three straight games in the fourth quarter or overtime — or the overall disappointment of what could have been, sophomore quarterback Connor Cook knows what the Wildcats are going through.

But for Cook, understanding the plight of Northwestern is one thing, while grasping what MSU has to do to earn a trip to the Big Ten Championship Game is quite another.

“They’re identical to us last year,” Cook said. “Great athletes, great players. They’re smart players but they’re just falling short in every single game. Just something is not going their way. They’ll be right there in the end, on the doorstep of winning and then something won’t go their way.

“They’re not gonna come out and back down, they’re gonna come out and be strong but we just gotta continue to do what we’ve been doing every week.”