Fighting Illini quarterback Katin Houser stepped left and fired as MSU defenders swarmed toward him. His pass sailed long and was intercepted by junior safety Devin Vaught at midfield, who returned it 37 yards to Illinois’ 11-yard line. On the next play, senior running back Jaziun Patterson turned the field position into points, resurrecting the crowd that remained. All of a sudden, it was a 23-17 game.

The moment became the centerpiece of a 24-8 Spartan run that forced overtime. Still, the Spartans would ultimately lose 38-37 after their two-point conversion attempt failed.

“I mean, this team has a never-ending fight, and I think we showed it out there today,” sophomore quarterback Alessio Milivojevic said. “And one thing we do is we believe; we believe at all times, no matter how much we’re down, how much we’re up, we believe we’re going to win the game and that’s what I felt on the sideline the entire game.”

That fight is the standard head coach Pat Fitzgerald is trying to instill in the program, and it’s clearly working. Arguably MSU’s best half of football prevented a third straight blowout loss to a conference foe and turned it into an overtime loss. 

A comeback seemed impossible early. The opening half looked like the start of that blowout. MSU trailed 20-7 at the break, having allowed Illinois to score on all four of its drives. Meanwhile, the Spartan offense managed just 8 yards on its first two possessions before scoring a touchdown on its third and final drive of the half.

Simply put, MSU looked like it did in its first two Big Ten games: Noncompetitive. That trend appeared to continue into the second half.

The Spartans were marching, sitting at midfield, before graduate tight end Brennan Parachek fumbled, ending the drive. Illinois took advantage, kicking a field goal eight plays later to extend its lead to 23-7. Then something clicked.

MSU scored 24 points on its final four drives of regulation while allowing just one more touchdown. The defense forced two turnovers, the Vaught interception and a fourth-and-1 stop, which ignited the Spartans’ game-tying touchdown drive and sent the game to overtime, knotted at 31.

“The true measure of a man is how you continue to respond after things hit the fan,” graduate edge Kenny Soares Jr. said. “We practice every single day as hard as we can for as long as we can. It’s the Spartan way.”

It’s hard to find positives in a fourth straight loss, the third against a conference opponent. But MSU showed the most complete version of itself in the second half, despite multiple injuries, mainly at linebacker. Senior Jordan Hall, sophomore Brady Pretzlaff and senior Dion Crawford all left the game at different points and did not return.

MSU finally played complementary football, scoring on four of its five second-half drives — excluding the one-play drive before overtime — allowing just 11 points. It outgained the Fighting Illini 259-148 over that stretch.

The result may still have been a 38-37 loss on a failed two-point conversion attempt, but at halftime, overtime never seemed possible.

“We don’t want to play with people who put their head down when we’re losing,” Soares said. “We want people that continue to keep going no matter what.”

“That’s our standard,” Soares said.

MSU (2-4) will try to get Fitzgerald a win against his former team when Northwestern (4-1) travels to East Lansing. Kickoff is set for noon Saturday at Spartan Stadium. The game will air on Peacock.