On Tuesday at the Cotton Bowl’s Media Day in Arlington, Tex., Baylor Bears’ defensive end Shawn Oakman was asked if he watched Big 10 Football: “We don’t watch any Big Ten football,” said Oakman. “Why? It’s not interesting.”
Perhaps the No. 8 ranked Michigan State Spartans let those few words be their motivating factor throughout all four quarters of Thursday’s game, because the Spartans were on a mission from the first snap to the final whistle, to prove itself against the No. 5 ranked Bears.
With their only two losses of the season against the Ohio State Buckeyes, and the Oregon Ducks — both of which are headed to the National Championship on Monday, Jan. 12 — the Spartans’ 42-41 victory against Baylor has definitely commanded an interest throughout college football.
Several Cotton Bowl records were broken including most points allowed at 83 — a record previously held by USC and Texas Tech in the 1995 game, where both teams put up a total of 69 points — 55 by USC alone. Baylor senior quarterback Bryce Petty also broke the passing record previously held by Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, that was set in 2009 against Ole Miss, at 364 yards. Petty’s record stands at 550. And at 1,135 total yards of offense between Baylor and Michigan State, it unseated Texas A&M and Oklahoma’s 2013 record of 663 total yards.
While Baylor is notorious for its high potency offense, Petty finished the day 36 of 51 for 550 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception. Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook went 24 of 42 for 314 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions.
But where the Bears came up flat, was in the run game where the Spartans held their offense to -20 yards for the day. And against a Michigan State team, you can’t have a one dimensional offense and expect to win.
Michigan State trailed Baylor 24-14 at the half, but their defense managed to hold the Bears to just 17 total points in the second half. This was likely due to an adjustment where head coach Mark Dantonio decided to bring defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi down on the sideline — his final game coaching the Spartans, as he accepted the head coaching job at Pittsburgh.
For what ever reason, that seemed to be the difference maker, as the Spartans’ defense brought an all out blitz, pressuring Petty and shutting down the Bears’ offense entirely in the fourth quarter.
“It’s just sort of crazy,” Dantonio said. “I really probably can’t put it into words. We just kept pace. We didn’t panic.”
Perhaps the most memorable play in the second half was when Marcus Rush blocked Baylor kicker Chris Callahan’s 43-yard field goal attempt with 1:05 left, which set up a touchdown pass by MSU quarterback Connor Cook to hit Keith Mumphery on a 10-yard pass. This, coupled with Jeremy Langford’s 1-yard rushing touchdown on the previous drive — his 22nd rushing touchdown of the season — and the Spartans were up 42-41 with :17 seconds left.
The following three plays on the ensuing drive by Baylor were a complete disaster, with Petty getting sacked on back-to-back plays, and his final pass of the day, an interception by sophomore linebacker Riley Bullough.
On the blocked field goal attempt by Callahan, he took a violent hit by Michigan State junior safety RJ Williamson. Callahan made a joke of the matter after the game by Tweeting the following:
As many know, Baylor was edged out of the Playoff by Ohio State despite their win over TCU — the Big 12 co-champion — because of an egregious error by the Big 12 to not declare a true champion.
“I’m proud of our football team. Any time you put so much into something for so long, like we do, like our players do, you know, it certainly is unpleasant when the outcome is a reality like what happened today.” Baylor head coach Art Briles said in the post-game. “I feel like we had a really good opportunity to come out of here victoriously, and had a couple of unfortunate things that happened down the stretch that prevented us from winning.”
Both Michigan State, and Baylor finish the season 11-2.
*Section Photo credit to Gregory Shamus, Getty Images; Featured Photo (above) credit to Jerome Miron, USA Today Sports.
