Winning beats the other alternative, though being benched twice during a bowl game clouds the thrill of victory at least a bit.
That's why the Spartans' starting quarterback, junior Andrew Maxwell, was subdued after Saturday night's 17-16 victory over Texas Christian, according to Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch.
Though he forced a few smiles and sang the fight song with his teammates, there’s no way he felt like celebrating.
MSU had pulled off an improbable bowl win. After benching him. First in the third quarter, and then again in the fourth.
Maxwell’s struggles had become too much to withstand. Redshirt freshman Connor Cook, an afterthought since the spring game, took Maxwell’s place and rescued the Spartans from their floundering offense
The first-string QB, recruited as a promising star from Midland High, put on a stoic front for Couch.
"This doesn't have to turn into being about me," Maxwell said, sitting at his locker at Sun Devil Stadium, among the last to emerge from the showers. . . . "There’s really no room to worry about how I’m feeling or who was playing quarterback.”
Couch, who has covered Michigan college athletes since 2005, also is philosophic about what happened in Tempe, Ariz.:
There’s no victory that completely shades personal rejection.
