At the Last Second, Big Ten Leaders Remain in Hunt

Friday, 29 October 2010 16:54

Michigan City, Ind. – So OK, you're sitting there telling yourself No. 9 Wisconsin's earthquaking 31-18 upset of previously-No. 1 Ohio State (now. No. 10) in the Madison madhouse the previous Saturday pretty much reduced the Big Ten pecking order to the Badgers (6-1, 3-1) and No. 5 Michigan State (7-0), right?

Yeah, right?

First, there was Wisconsin, trailing feisty archrival Iowa for much of the day Saturday, yet another victim of the classic team coming off the big upset only to be...WHOOPS.

Then here is Michigan State, in desperate need of a life raft, Sparty's unbeaten season drowning in yet another Northwestern upset, 27-21, at the Wildcats' cozy Ryan Field.

Two games, two locations -- 240 miles apart. And two fake punts turning both games around. What are the odds?

Start with Michigan State's second gadget play -- the first, called "Little Giants," a fake field goal that caught the Irish in flatfeet mode, resulted in the Spartans' 34-31 overtime win over Notre Dame in East Lansing.

No. 2 came early in the fourth quarter. "We called it the mousetrap," coach Mark Dantonio said Sunday. On Saturday, he was a tad more candid with ESPN sideline reporter Shelley Smith: "It's the 'mousetrap.' They took the cheese."

It was not meant as a slight to the Wildcats, nor their talented coach, Pat Fitzgerald. But the Spartans have lived on the edge much of the season.

Dantonio, you'll recall, suffered a mild heart attack in the early moments of the post-game press conference after the Notre Dame game, and he's had a couple of off-field affairs to keep things stirred up.

Still, as people begin to compare the 2010 Spartans to Ohio State in Jim Tressel's second year in Columbus, 2002, where the Buckeyes won the national title, Michigan State begins to enter the national conversation more day-by-day. Maybe not such a coincidence, either. Dantonio was Tressel's defensive coordinator back then before taking the Cincinnati job, then moving to East Lansing in 2007.

Dantonio has grown to fully appreciate the brilliant play of his special teams. "If you look at the games I've watched on TV -- the Ohio State-Wisconsin game and the Oklahoma-Missouri game -- there were two kickoff returns by the home teams (Wisconsin and Missouri) playing against higher-ranked teams," Dantonio said. Down 24-21 early in the fourth quarter with a fourth-and-long at the N.U. 31, the Spartans took a delay-of-game penalty.

Insert wink and nod here. But the 'Cats seemed very punt ready.

The 'Cats seemed to have the fake covered, but holder Aaron Bates' clinically perfect fake froze the N.U. secondary and before it could recover, fourth and long became a 21-yard completion to Bennie Fowler and turned the fourth quarter around entirely en route to a 35-27 victory that jumped the Spartans from eighth to fifth in The Associated Press poll.

"We certainly had our antennas up (after knowing about the fake field goal that led to Michigan State's OT touchdown against Notre Dame)," Northwestern linebacker Bryce McNaul said to the Chicago Tribune's Teddy Greenstein.

Michigan State scored the go-ahead T.D. when Kirk Cousins hit B.J. Cunningham, a nine-yarder that Northwestern's Brian Peters tipped. Peters fell to the ground and pounded it.

Greenstein asked what Peters was thinking. "It's not P-G rated," the frustrated Wildcats linebacker said.

At Iowa City, the Hawkeyes, locked in a typical wrestling match with their neighbors to the northeast. A glance back over the Wisconsin-Iowa rivalry unveils a ton of crazy moments, but none were wackier than last Saturday's.

This wasn't just your basic 31-30 nailbiter. Coach Brett Bielema, his team facing a fourth-and-four situation on its own 26 with just over six minutes to go, had seen Iowa's muscular offense dominate the line of scrimmage a little too often for his liking.

So he tried his level-best to mask the little surprise the No. 9 Badgers (6-1, 3-1) had for Iowa, by lining up three deep in classic punt formation in front of punter Brad Nortman.

According to Wisconsin State Journal reporter Tom Mulhern, the final decision was up to Ryan Groy, a second-string guard, based on how the Hawkeyes were playing the situation.

"It was a check at the line of scrimmage," Bielema told Mulhern. "We gave them the call...(Groy is) a good Middletown (Wis.) kid with a good GPA. We trusted him."

Nortman did the usual fake-punt trick-o-ration, and the Hawkeyes found themselves peeling backward as Nortman, looking like a scared scarecrow on a life-or-death mission, ran like an 8th grade geek asking "What's this thing under my arm?' No matter. The stunned Hawkeyes never recovered, easing the Badgers' path to the end zone.

Bielema heaved a post-game sigh at the post-game press conference. Then he smiled -- possibly his first of the afternoon. He was still pretty tense on the sideline following UW's stunner.

"That was," Bielema told the State Journal, and scores of others stifling a few giggles, "a deep breath."

Two fake punts, two ongoing magical seasons. Unless you were wearing Hawkeyes or Wildcats garb, what wasn't to like?

FROM THE OTHER PRECINCTS ... Ohio State (7-1, 3-1) wiggled its way back into the Top 10 with a 49-0 shellacking of undermanned Purdue and Penn State may have rediscovered at least some of its offense in a 33-21 win at Minnesota. In Illinois' 43-13 crushing of free-falling Indiana, the Illini racked up over 500 yards of total offense. But hey, the Hoosiers' men's basketball team gives up less offense than their football counterparts.

About Paul Smith

Paul Smith covers the Big Ten, Notre Dame and the rest of the national college football scene with his View From the Midwest.

About Paul Smith

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