Except the celebration was anything but “little.” The crowd in front of Hollis was a 27,000-person sea of green and white, all gathered to support the first MSU football team to reach the Rose Bowl in a quarter century.

The crowd was nearly three times the size of what officials expected, according to vice president of the Michigan State University Alumni group of Los Angeles Libby DuBay, who graduated from MSU in 1985. While officials in Los Angeles expected a smaller crowd, DuBay knew the Spartan faithful would have a stronger showing.

“They were expecting 10,000, but we knew it would be more than that because we knew how many people live in LA and we knew how many people were coming (from Michigan),” DuBay said, who will be attending the game with her brother, 1980 alumnus Larry DuBay.

The mass of Spartan fans started packing the corridor between Staples Center and Nokia Theater in the wee hours of the morning, all to see the hour-long pep rally that kicked off at 3 p.m. PST.

Before MSU trustee Scott Westerman took the stage to emcee the event, the hordes of spectators were treated to the men’s basketball game against Penn State on three big screens.

But the basketball game was hardly a reason for MSU to get fired up for the main event as the the Spartans finished the first half trailing 47-40. Once halftime of the game rolled around Westerman introduced the Spartan Marching Band, marking the beginning of the pep rally that awoke the spirits of thousands of fans.

Hollis was the first to speak on behalf of MSU, thanking “every person who has walked the campus at Michigan State” for helping the Spartans reach this iconic moment. The microphone was then passed to head coach Mark Dantonio, who kicked off his speech with the one word many Spartan fans have been saying for the last month.

“Wow,” he said while looking at the overflowing crowd.

The Big Ten Coach of the Year used his first time on stage to introduce the team’s honorary captain – crowd favorite and former quarterback Kirk Cousins. Coincidentally enough, the big screen still beaming, the MSU game showed the Spartans taking the lead while Cousins was being showered with cheers, making his way onto the stage.

The Washington Redskins quarterback then spoke of the memories and emotions he carries from MSU.

“When I stay at the hotels with the Washington Redskins … and I turn on the Michigan State game, the TV is on and I’m sitting around Pro Bowl players and (former Redskins head coach) Mike Shanahan, I watch the Spartans and I say, ‘I’m one of them,’” Cousins said to a raucous applause.

Cousins then passed the mic back to Dantonio who went on to tell fans how his team has a boulder with a rope tied around it at their practice facility.

The reason is a rather symbolic one, telling his team they have to somehow move the rock in order to get where they want to be and add tallies to their win column. Although they do not don pads or take bruising hits every Saturday, Dantonio made sure to give kudos to the fans who made the trip across the country.

“I want to congratulate everybody here today, because you had to do something to get here, you had to move that rock,” he said. “You had to move that rock with your family. You had to move the Spartan rock to LA, congratulations for moving that rock.”