While the folks in Ann Arbor try to resurrect a once-great football program, Michigan State University showed on New Year's Day with the nail-biter victory against Baylor that it has cemented its position as one of the nation's elite teams.
Shawn Windsor of the Detroit Free Press writes:
They danced as they did a year ago, but that's where the similarity stops. The Spartans were on the way up at the Rose Bowl. Now they're at the top.
Oh, sure, Michigan State didn't win a national championship Thursday in the Cotton Bowl, but the Spartans showed us that they have arrived.
What that means eventually, we will have to wait and see. But after watching this team win yet another statement game, it's time we stop to consider: Four straight bowl victories — despite a double-digit deficit in each game. At least 11 victories in four of the last five seasons. Top 10 finishes guaranteed in the final poll for back-to-back seasons — a first since the 1960s.
And now?
The season's most improbable come-from-behind victory, against the country's fourth-ranked team, played in front of mostly opposing fans, in a stadium stuffed in Baylor gold.
