The genius of Mark Dantonio and Pat Fitzgerald were again front and center on Saturday. Dantonio’s Michigan State squad, decimated by injuries, traveled to Happy Valley to face a rested Penn State team. Dantonio knew his team was outmanned so he kept rolling the dice. MSU’s first touchdown drive featured both a fake punt and a halfback pass. Down 17-14 with 6 minutes to go, Dantonio passed on a 40+ yard field goal in favor of yet another fake. The pass was incomplete but Dantonio felt he had to keep the Nittany Lions off balance to have a chance to win.
Undaunted, Brian Lewerke threw the game-winning touchdown pass to the Spartans’ only healthy starting receiver, Felton Davis, with only 19 ticks left on the clock. Dantonio’s record in his past 14 games against Top 10 foes: 9-5. Even more amazing given that the Spartans’ roster is usually scarce of 4 and 5 star recruits.
Michigan State will likely again be an underdog on Saturday when the hated Wolverines head northwest on I-96. Big deal! Dantonio is 8-2 in his last 10 rivalry tilts with Michigan and will eternally have the pleasure of outcoaching Jim Harbaugh in the most infamous play in Wolverine history (Sparty’s scoop and score on the last play of the epic 2015 game).
Dantonio’s stellar record would burn even brighter if he could regularly beat Northwestern. The Wildcats currently sport an improbable 3-game winning streak against MSU. Coming into 2018, Fitzgerald faced even more obstacles than usual at the Big 10’s only private university. All-time top 10 rusher in NCAA annals, Justin Jackson, had graduated. A couple weeks ago, Jackson’s replacement, Jeremy Larkin had to retire for medical reasons. Coming into the season, the Wildcats’ excellent quarterback, Clayton Thorson, was not 100% physically recovered from an ACL tear in the Music City Bowl.
Improbably, Northwestern has now won 3 games in 2018 that were eminently losable. In the past 2 weekends, Northwestern’s non-existent running game rushed for 40 yards – TOTAL – in the past 8 quarters. Relying 100% on a now-healthy Thorson produced an upset win at East Lansing and a one-for-the-ages comeback win over luckless Nebraska in overtime. In Northwestern’s opener, Fitzgerald’s charges managed to win at Purdue despite a less-than-100% Thorson and a Purdue offense that racked up 472 yards.
The margin between winning and losing is often paper thin. Contrast their repeated success with the enormous burden Penn State’s James Franklin is now carrying. His last 5 losses have come by a microscopic total of 12 points — if that was not sufficiently nightmarish, Penn State had leads in the 4th quarter of all 5 nailbiters. Factor in that 4 of the 5 losses come against Big 10 East Uber Rivals, Ohio State and Michigan State. OUCH!!
Even while talk of the College Football playoff and the latest superhuman Alabama team often suck much of the oxygen out of the room, Fitzgerald and Dantonio continue to shine among the very best coaches in college football.