Ranking Mark Dantonio’s 100 wins: Historic play vs. UM comes in at No. 5

Yeah, like you really need a refresher of this game.

The first game in the top five is maybe the one game you’ll never forget. At the very least, you’ll at least carry the memories of this final play forever.

If you’ve missed out on any of the fun for wins No. 100-6, swing on by to this link.

Win No. 5

Oct. 17, 2015: No. 7 MSU 27, No. 12 Michigan 23

%&@# IT, LET’S GET RIGHT TO IT!

How They Won

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

/catches breath

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

DESMOND, YOUR THOUGHTS?

THINGS THAT NEVER GET OLD FOR $5 BILLION, ALEX.

Man, throw that entire play on my headstone. I don’t care how you have to do it — just do it.

But Really...How They Won

Alright, before the most famous 10 second stretch in Dantonio’s tenure, 59 minutes and 50 seconds of football happened.

MSU’s passing game put up great numbers with 328 yards from Connor Cook but only saw one touchdown, thrown to Macgarrett Kings Jr.

Aaron Burbridge also had himself a day, reeling in 132 receiving yards on nine catches.

The running game, on the other hand, did not light up the box score with just 58 total rushing yards. However, they generated the points with LJ Scott scoring two touchdowns on the game.

Scott’s first score came in the second quarter to tie it at 7-7, just before UM booted a field goal to make it the 10-7 halftime score.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

After allowing UM’s fullback to take roughly a half hour to cross the goal line on 3rd-and-1 in the third quarter, UM took at 17-7 lead. I would totally be salty about that play had the ending of this game not included snap trouble.

Instead of pouting about it like I — and many others at home — did, MSU generated a response with that Kings touchdown. Now it’s just a 20-14 lead going into the fourth quarter after another UM field goal.

UM gets yet another field goal, and now the Wolverines are sitting with a 23-14 lead. Well, they were, until Big Play Trevon Pendleton was more open than a church on Sunday and took the ball to the .000001 yard line.

Scott did the honors of scoring next play and tightening the lead to 23-21 with 8:56 left in the game.

The Final Sequence

MSU’s last ditch effort to score went terrible, to put it bluntly, failing to convert on 4th-and-19. This game looked to be all but over.

With 1:47 left on the clock and just one MSU timeout remaining, the only way of winning was to force a 3-and-out and just pray a coach making $8 million-ish decides to send gunners out on the punt team with no punt returner in sight, instead letting 11 Spartans have a full-blown raid at their Aussie-style punter and THEN maybe bring it to at least field goal range.

I mean, what are the odds of that all happening?

Apparently 100 percent.

What This Win Meant

History. Meaning. Continuity.

History because this is one of the greatest plays in college football history. You have the band on the field game. You have Auburn’s Kick-6 finish against Bama. You have the Flutie Hail Mary Game. And now you have Jalen Watts-Jackson, Rangers Mission 4-10, Big House Blunder or Whatever You Want To Call It.

Meaning because, and I feel like this is forgotten, there were some big stakes in this game. This was undefeated MSU and one-loss UM’s chance to hop right in the driver’s seat for the Big Ten East race in the third week of conference play.

Continuity because, well, this meant seven wins in eight games.

Alright, one more for the road...