Wow! That's all I can muster after the 3 overtime Classic that started a 3:30 in the afternoon and went on for another 5 hours. I had no clue MSU had such a prolific rushing attack. I have seen highlights of MSU's quarterback Drew Stanton in action, and was not real impressed. But after seeing him scamper around for those first downs and that touchdown, he changed my mind. But as you should expect from a running qb, with about 3 minutes until halftime, Stanton was drilled into the ground by the Wolverine standout OLB LaMarr Woodley and just happened to get this shoulder seperated in that whole process. At halftime it was 17-10 for MSU. I always belive that Michigan makes great halftime adjustments to the gameplan, but on this day it didn't seem to matter much to State what Michigan's gameplan was.
After the halftime break MSU was relentless in trying to pound U of M into submission. Even with their leader hurt and on the bench, back-up qb Damon Dowdell kept up the running assult on big blue. For pretty much the entire game except the last 7 minutes, MSU was beating Michigan to the punch on every play offensively and defensivly. With about 7:15 left in the fourth quarter, MSU's tailback DeAndra Cobb busted out a 63 yard run to put State up 27-10.
By then I was completely demoralized and ready to beat the hell out of a loud mouth State fan sitting just a few rows in front of me. So the spartans kick-off the ball and we get it back around the 20, whoop-dee-doo. The first play out of the gate is a 46 yard strike from Chad Henne to Braylon Edwards. The offense then stalls, so we take the field goal and reel MSU a little closer 27-13. Then Michigan lines up for the onside kick, they have two kickers out there, Nienburg facing the right side and Rivas on the left. So Rivas lets it rip, It bounces right off a spartan to Michigan TE Brian Thompson, and big blue recovers. It takes two plays and 15 seconds for Braylon to come up with a touchdown. We are now down 27-20 with 6:12 left, so we kick it off and let our defense do their thing. The Spartys got to about the 35 yard line before they had to punt. We have the ball, 3:24 left on the clock, so what does Michigan do? Two plays and 14 seconds later, Edwards is in the endzone again with his second TD and we are all square at 27-27 with about 2:59 on the clock. For the rest of regulation, it is a defensive battle, State had the chance to put us away with a 51 yard field goal with 3 seconds left in regulation, but it was a little windy out, so that kick was not close at all.
In the first O.T. we both got FGs so it was 30-30. In the second O.T. State struck first with a rushing TD from Jason Teague, so we answered with a TD pass to Jason Avant it was 37-37. Finally in the third O.T. on 3rd and 9 from the 24, Henne hit Braylon in stride right down the middle for a 24 yard TD reception, on the 2-point conversion, Henne hit Tim Massaquoi in the back of the endzone for the duece. With that score it was 45-37 Michigan, and I was very happy once again. This week is a bye, after a game like that I need the week off.
P.S. Michael Hart had his third consecutive 200+ yard rushing game, first back in Michigan History to do that. Take that adrian peterson