Spartans Have Plenty To Prove In Cotton Bowl Classic
12/22/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist | @GrinzOnGreen
EAST LANSING, Mich. - An emotional Keith Mumphery choked back tears while giving his two-minute senior speech at Michigan State's annual football awards banquet. Where would he be, the opportunistic wide receiver wondered aloud, had MSU assistant coach Dave Warner not found him way down in Vienna, Georgia?
A week later, Mumphery answered his own question.
"Oh, I'd probably be in school somewhere," he said at MSU's Cotton Bowl Media Day. "But I doubt I'd be having the time of my life that I'm having right now."
Winning championships has become the expectation for the Spartans over the course of Mumphery's five-year career, and his splendid 72-yard yard touchdown catch provided Michigan State with early momentum in its victory over Ohio State in the 2013 Big Ten title game.
However, Mumphery, his teammates and his program have far too much invested, in sweat equity alone, for it to ever be an all-or-nothing proposition. The Spartans may have fallen a win short of making it into the College Football Playoff, but oh what dozens of teams wouldn't give to be able to temper their disappointment the way MSU can.
Michigan State has already locked up its fourth double-digit win total in five seasons and will play in arguably the top non-CFP game of the postseason when it faces No. 5 Baylor in the Goodyear Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1.
Mumphery and the rest of the seniors are going for their 42nd win, which would tie them with the class of '13 for the most in school history. Furthermore, the Spartans have a legitimate shot at recording back-to-back top-five finishes for the first time since 1965-66.
"As seniors, especially, no matter what bowl game it would have been, we all wanted the extra opportunity to play again," Mumphery said.
Competing in one of the premier New Year's Six bowls only increases the potential for a bigger accomplishment.
"The first thing I would say some people don't get about playing in a game like the Cotton Bowl is it's another opportunity to do what you do best as players," Mumphery said. "It means a lot just to see yourself and your teammates grow and have the opportunity to be a part of something so successful.
"It really warms my heart."
Postseason experience has been a vital ingredient in eighth-year head coach Mark Dantonio's formula for success. It began with a 24-21 loss to Boston College in the 2007 Champs Sports Bowl, which ended a three-year bowl drought and was the first of an ongoing school record eight in a row. Even the 49-7 drubbing suffered at the hands of Alabama in the Capital One Bowl at the end of the 2010 season turned out to be invaluable because it showed the Spartans where they measured up against an elite program.
And while it may not have looked it at the time, MSU's 17-16 victory against TCU in the 2012 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl proved to be critical because it thrust Connor Cook into contention for the starting quarterback job while serving as a launching pad to Big Ten and Rose Bowl titles and a school-record 13 wins in '13.
"The first thing was about getting back to a bowl game, and we were able to do that," Dantonio said. "In `07 we played very competitively against Boston College. In '08, we played very competitively against a great Georgia team (while losing 24-12 in the Capital One Bowl). In '09, we went down to the Alamo Bowl and played competitively (in a 41-31 loss to Texas Tech). 2010 we got blown out by Alabama and did not play well enough. Then we started winning in '11 against Georgia again, and '12 against TCU, and last year against Stanford. So we've played three very, very good football teams and three well-coached teams these last three times out.
"I think the first thing you have to be able to do is get to the bowl game and establish a winning culture. We were able to do that. Then the next thing we had to do was be able to win on the road. We've been able to do that. The third thing that had to come was winning these bowl games."
Making it to the Rose Bowl was special for MSU for a variety of reasons, according to Mumphery. It not only ended the Spartans' 26-year absence from Pasadena, it was their first and only appearance in a BCS event, it was the 100th playing of the game and it was the final Rose Bowl under the format that earned it "The Granddaddy of them All" moniker.
Nevertheless, Michigan State won't be taking a step backward by playing in the Cotton Bowl and facing a high-powered Baylor team that was an 11th-hour exclusion from the national semifinals. No other non-CFP game would give the Spartans a better chance to build credibility and enhance their reputation than facing the Bears.
"We have an opportunity to play against a good football team, and the possibility of winning that game puts us right on the fringe of being an 11-2 football team and being on the fringe of being in the playoffs," Dantonio said. "So we use that to move forward."
The Spartans parlayed the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl into Big Ten and Rose Bowl glory with what was the nation's top-ranked defense until the final game. That experience set the tone for Michigan State's role as an active participant in the CFP vetting process this season with Cook leading the most prolific offensive attack the school has ever known.
With Cook already expressing his intention to return for his senior season, the Spartans are ideally positioned to continue their upward trend.
"If we beat the fifth-ranked team, we can move up a couple more slots and send the seniors out on a high note," Cook said. "And beating a major opponent and an elite program could obviously springboard us into next year, putting us on the map possibly with a preseason ranking of 10 or higher.
"So, we're looking forward to that and trying to accomplish it."
While the Spartans have occasionally been victimized by lousy timing under Dantonio, they have always managed to rise above it, eventually.
In 2010, for example, the Spartans finished in a three-way tie for the Big Ten Championship and settled for the Capital One Bowl, thanks to a newly instituted, and unusual, conference tie-breaking procedure based on the BCS rankings instead of head-to-head results (although MSU defeated Wisconsin during the regular season, the Badgers advanced to the Rose Bowl). Had the league gone to divisional play one season earlier, MSU would have been in the title game with a chance to play in the Rose Bowl.
Michigan State did play in the inaugural Big Ten Championship Game in '11, only to lose to Wisconsin, and settled for the Outback Bowl.
And if the CFP had been in existence last season, MSU, as the No. 4-ranked team after beating Ohio State in the Big Ten final, almost certainly would have been in it with a chance to play for the National Championship. However, the dramatic win against Stanford in the Rose Bowl and ending up third in the country made up for the way fate treated that Spartan group.
Getting within sight of the playoffs this season - and if it were an eight-team playoff, as many suggest it should be, MSU would be in - has made the renowned chip on the Spartans' shoulders that much bigger, according to sophomore offensive tackle Jack Conklin.
"What comes with winning the Rose Bowl and being Big Ten Champions last year is we set our goals high," he said. "We don't want to settle for not winning the Big Ten or not going to the playoffs because that's just the type of team we are now. We want to be at the top and the best in the country.
"Obviously, it's not where we set our goals for, but we're not in a bad place at all. If we have to settle for being somewhere else, playing the No. 5 team in the nation, the last one that missed out on being in the playoffs, in one of the classic, great bowls is the best possible opportunity to show we're one of the elite programs in the nation. These are the games we love to be in because we always want to have something to prove, and always will have something to prove."
