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Published Oct 31, 2020
No Tricks, All Treat: Spartans beat Michigan, 27-24
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Jim Comparoni  •  Spartans Illustrated
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Ann Arbor, Mich. - It didn’t take long for Mel Tucker to write a thrilling chapter in Spartan football lore.

In his second game as head coach at Michigan State, Tucker’s Spartans stunned No. 13 Michigan, 27-24, at Michigan Stadium.

The Spartans were a 21.5 underdog after a maddening loss to Rutgers last week while Michigan never punted in a steamrolling of Minnesota.

This Halloween weekend, however, Michigan didn’t prove to be as good as advertised, and the Spartans were certainly much-improved from week one to week two.

After committing seven turnovers a week ago, Michigan State played clean, physical football all day, with zero turnovers, only five penalties and didn’t allow a sack.

The hard-hitting Spartans were relatively error-free in the defensive backfield, with no major busts, while containing Michigan quarterback Joe Milton.

“This is just the beginning,” Tucker said. “For the Michigan State fans, this one is for you. We’re very proud to bring the Paul Bunyan Trophy back where it belongs.”

Spartan quarterback Rocky Lombardi completed 17 of 32 passes for a career-high 323 yards with three TD passes.

“We haven’t had Paul in the locker room for two years,” Lombardi said. “We really wanted this game, to get Coach Tucker’s first win, his first Michigan win, there were a lot of emotions. It’s going to motivate us for the rest of the season.”

Freshman wide receiver Ricky White had eight catches for 196 yards, with one touchdown.

“Ricky is a player,” Lombardi said. “We have dogs all over the field, people making plays left and right.

“I know we were three-touchdown underdogs but everyone on this team knew we had a chance.”

Freshman running back Jordon Simmons rushed for 55 yards as the Spartans managed 126 yards on the ground a week after doing virtually nothing in that area.

Junior running back Connor Heyward added 28 yards rushing and two catches for 15 yards, including a 13-yard insurance TD on a screen pass which gave Michigan State a 27-17 lead with 5:11 to play.

The Spartans accepted the Paul Bunyan Trophy in their locker room, as post-game reaction on the field was brief, due to COVID-19 precautions.

“We understand this is a very special game, dating back over a hundred years,” Tucker said. “The credit goes to our coaches and players for believing in our process. We are continuing to build on our process. Our guys have bought in and they believe in it.”

NINE OF 13

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Michigan State has won nine of the last 13 games between these two rivals, and five of the last seven at Michigan Stadium.

Tucker became only the second Michigan State head coach to beat Michigan in his first year, joining his former boss Nick Saban.

“We knew that we needed to make this a physical game and we were prepared to do that for 60 minutes,” Tucker said.

Matt Coghlin gave Michigan State the lead for good when he hit a career-long 51-yard field goal, giving Michigan State a 20-17 lead with 4:23 left in the third quarter and intensifying MSU’s belief in the upset bid.

In the fourth quarter, Michigan State drove deep from its own 2-yard line and own 8-yard line - once for a missed 40-yard field goal, and the other drive ended with the 13-yard TD pass to Heyward.

Michigan drove to cut the lead to 27-24 with :37 second left, but needed 18 plays to travel those 93 yards against the Spartans’ zone defense, and exhausted most of what remained of the game clock.

Heyward then recovered an on-side kick.

INSIDE THE FINAL SNEAK

Four plays after Heyward recovered the on-side kick, on fourth-and-two, a Lombardi quarterback sneak at the Michigan 36-yard line with :23 seconds remaining secured victory.

“We got the ball back with :38 seconds left, and we can’t take a knee because they had three time outs,” Lombardi said. “We have to run the ball, get rid of their time outs.”

A fly sweep to Jalen Nailor on third-and-six gained four yards to set up fourth-and-two. Michigan State decided to go for it. Pick up the first down and victory would be secured.

“Fourth-and-two, we were going to try to draw them off-sides,” Lombardi said.

Michigan State tried it, but Michigan didn’t budge. With the play clock running down, Michigan State called time out.

After the time out, Michigan State tried again to draw Michigan off-sides. Again, Michigan didn’t bite.

MSU had a Plan B.

“(Coaches said), if you can’t draw them off-sides and if you think you can get the quarterback sneak, call it,” Lombardi said. “The rest is history. Called it and won the game.”

He called it after looking to the sideline, and briefly feigning as if the Spartans weren’t going to snap the ball. But, borrowing a ploy that Rutgers used last week on a fourth-down conversion, Lombardi quickly got back under center for a quick snap, and he lunged forward for the two yards.

“I knew I had it,” Lombardi said. “I trusted those guys up front to get a little push and that’s all I needed.”

POST-GAME SNIPING

Antjuan Simmons and Noah Harvey led Michigan State with 11 tackles apiece.

“I felt like we out-physicaled them today,” Simmons said. “I told our guys this week, the most physical team wins this game.”

Michigan's Milton threw for 300 yards but needed 51 pass attempts to do it (32 of 51). He had only two completions of more than 17 yards, and the longest went for 26 yards.

When asked about Simmons after the game, Milton said “he (Simmons) isn’t on my radar.”

Simmons sniped back at Milton during Simmons’ post-game Zoom press conference.

“I don’t care if I’m on Joe Milton’s radar or not,” Simmons said. “He’s just a quarterback who plays quarterback here at Michigan. I’m not worried about what he’s thinking. I don’t know what those guys do over there. It don't matter. Pauly B is back with us."

MSU STARTED FAST

Michigan State struck first on a 30-yard deep pass from Lombardi to Ricky White, the first of several deep shots by the occasionally aggressive Spartans on this afternoon. That gave Michigan State a 7-0 lead with 10:57 left in the first quarter.

Michigan State attempted passes of greater than 20 yards on 13 occasions in this game, completing 5-of-10 while drawing three penalties.

Michigan tied the game at 7-7 on a Blake Corum 8-yard TD run with 7:01 left in the first quarter.

Lombardi connected with Heyward on a nifty third-and-goal out route for a 2-yard TD pass to give Michigan State a 14-7 lead with 9:40 left in the fist half

Michigan’s Quinn Nordin hit a 23-yard field goal to cut it to 14-10 late in the first half.

Then MSU’s Coghlin gave Michigan State a 17-10 lead early in the second half after Lombardi hooked up with White for a 50-yard deep go route.

Michigan tied the game at 17-17 on a 1-yard Corum plunge on a TD drive aided by a 15-yard penalty by Spartan nickel back Shakur Brown for taunting after he made a big hit which should have resulted in a third-and-10 situation for Michigan at the Michigan State 41-yard line. Instead, Michigan was granted a first down at the 26-yard line and cracked the end zone four plays later.

“We had a few mental mistakes but we were able to recover and bounce back,” Simmons said. “We made plays on the ball, made plays all over the field. I’m really proud of the team, the program, the coaches. I don’t know how much better we could have played today.”

MichiganState
FOOTBALL
Scores / Schedule
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21 - 5
Overall Record
12 - 3
Conference Record
Finished
Michigan St.
75
Arrow
Michigan St.
Purdue
66
Purdue
Illinois
65
Illinois
Michigan St.
79
Arrow
Michigan St.
Michigan St.
67
Michigan St.
Indiana
71
Arrow
Indiana
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