Where I Come From: Most Memorable MSU Football Moments

I’ll use your standard of actually being in attendance at the game……

5)1995 MSU over Michigan

4) 1993 MSU over Michigan – my sophomore year at State, and my first time seeing the big game in person. Our defense totally shut down Tyrone Wheatley (I think he had like 29 yards)

3) 1999 MSU over Michigan – traveled back to EL for the game of 2 unbeatens, spent way too much for tickets, and it was worth every penny. Tom Brady replaced Drew Henson in the 2nd half and almost brought UM back from a big deficit, but the Spartans held on in the end

2) MSU over Tennessee in the the Elite 8 in 2010 (gotta throw some hoops love out there!)

1) 2000 Citrus Bowl….what an awesome and fun game to watch! Back and forth, lots of scoring. Plax and Travis Taylor from Florida putting on a show at receiver, and Edinger with the big kick to win it! One of my favorite parts was greeting the team next door at Tinker Field after the game and getting a bunch of pictures with Duckett, Gary Scott, Ju Pete, Burke, and Edinger

in 2001 was pretty awesome, too. Actually, his back-of-the-endzone catch at Spartan Stadium (in a losing effort) in 2002 was probably even better.

okay they’re over there

For the ‘95 UM game I flew back from Hawaii to visit my best friend who attended State at the time. I sat in the upper deck and was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and a light coat. I don’t remember the cold and I still get chills (of a different sort) watching Mason complete that catch on his back. This was my first time at Spartan stadium. It (the game, the stadium, the experience) did not disappoint. Two years later I returned to MSU as a sophomore.

I planned my college roommate’s bachelor party to coincide with Notre Dame weekend in 2000. In my three years at State I attended all the MSU/ND games (2x in South Bend). This was my first football game as an alum, but somehow managed to get into the student section. Pure pandemonium, joy and exhilaration when Herb took that ball to the house.

I’d like to add two games against Penn State I remember fondly.

The 1997 game where we thrashed them 49-14 and Irvin and Clemons(?) each hung 200 yards rushing on PSU. The other is the 1999 game: cold, rainy & sleety – winning in overtime and keeping our (slight) Orange Bowl hopes alive.

And I still can’t tell if time actually ran out or not. Best I can tell, trying to synchronize a stopwatch to the time counting down, normal reaction time would put you somewhere between 0.1 seconds too late and 0.2 seconds left. So stopping it with one second still showing isn’t provably wrong – just too close that it’s not clearly right either.

As to my favorite moments … well, there weren’t many in games I was actually at (my college years coincided in their entirety with John L. Smith’s tenure). But here are a couple:

• Peko’s TD return against Michigan
• The OT win in South Bend ’05 (well, blowing the 21 point lead to get there was no fun)
• The goal line stand right before the half against Wisconsin in ’04

. . . in 1998 upsetting previously undefeated #1 OSU on the road, when Renaldo Hill intercepted the pass in the end zone in the last minute of play to seal the deal!!

I won’t use KJ’s criteria because I didn’t actually attend too many good things happening with MSU football.

• The infamous two point conversion failure in 1990, ruining number one U of M’s season. The first MSU football game I can remember details of (I was born in 1978, and I sorta remember the Rose Bowl, but not really). Yes, it was pass interference. If it was called and they’d stop U of M a second time, that would have been an even greater moment.

• The aforementioned Renaldo Hill interception.

• Brian Hoyer hitting a diving Desmond Thomas on the corner route in the rain against PSU in 2007. Wasn’t the lead taking TD, but it got us close, as I recall.

• The catch. Never hesitate to remind U of M complainers that we got robbed of a timeout because the refs took so long to call 12 men on the field earlier in that drive. I didn’t see most of the game because I was in NJ for my granddad’s funeral. It was after the service and we’d gone back to the hotel to relax between funeral and wake. Grandpa was very old and in very bad shape, so it wasn’t a real shocking death as far as grief goes. So we turned on the MSU game to find out what happened. Oh, it’s still on. During the final drive my mom couldn’t take it and hid out in the hotel bathroom.

• And let’s be real, this is MSU football. So, Pat Dillingham to Arnaz Battle to win in 2002. Right after Charles Rogers made the greatest catch I’ve ever seen. There are obviously more crushing losses, with the 2004 and 2005 Michigan games and the worst game ever in 2006.

Quirky honorable mentions
2007 vs. ND, Jonal St. Dic just stealing the ball from Jimmy the Emu and running away with it.
1997 vs. Michigan. Getting whomped by the hated of the hated, Saban pulls a silly trick play where he has 10 guys line up to kick a field goal and Sedrick Irvin lines up split wide, as close to the sideline as possible. Michigan doesn’t see him and the holder, Bill Burke, stand up and hits him with an easy touchdown.