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This is an opinion piece from MLive.com reporter Matt Wenzel
Following a flight back from Baltimore on Sunday, I was making a long walk from the far end of the McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metro with two colleagues.
The topic of Michigan State playing in the Rose Bowl was floated and it initially sounded about as plausible as me piloting the next outbound jet to Beijing. But it only took a few seconds of discussion and, well before we strolled past Gate 35, I dismissed everything I’ve seen this season to realize it was an actual possibility.
Still unlikely, still relying on a number of ifs, but possible.
The prospect of the Spartans playing in Pasadena was one I didn’t think coach Mark Dantonio would even entertain this week, especially with a game against Ohio State looming on Saturday. However, he certainly didn’t dismiss the idea, despite not mentioning the Rose Bowl by name.
“This is a strange football season,” Dantonio said Tuesday. “A lot of people have lost. There’s a lot of two-loss teams, quite a few three-loss teams right now. If you can’t win the Big Ten championship – I guess mathematically, there’s still opportunity there – I think the next thing is, can you go to a (New Year’s Six) Bowl? Can you be 9-3? Well, you’ve got to win this one if you’re going to do that.”
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The possibility of Michigan State (6-3, 4-2 Big Ten) playing in the Rose Bowl this year certainly wasn’t out of the question in August, but it seems wild now given how the season has transpired. The Spartans, coming off a 10-3 season and returning the bulk of their talent on both sides of the ball, struggled to a 4-3 start to the year.
A slew of injuries and ineffectiveness, particularly on offense, contributed to a disappointing first half of the season. It seemed even making a bowl game could be in jeopardy if Michigan State didn’t rebound. The Spartans did with back-to-back wins against Purdue and Maryland after a loss to Michigan, and here we are talking about the possibility of them playing in the Rose Bowl.
So, let’s run over the roadmap – about as suspect as the one old friends of mine (I wasn’t in the car) kicked off by driving an hour east from Lansing en route to Arizona for spring break – to Michigan State playing in Pasadena.
To start, the Spartans have to win out. That begins with a victory against Ohio State (8-1, 5-1) on Saturday – which will probably require their best performance of the season – and then wins at Nebraska and at home against Rutgers to close the regular season.
Next, Michigan needs to win a Big Ten championship and be one of four teams selected for the College Football Playoff. If the Spartans beat Ohio State this week, that will basically cement the Wolverines’ spot in Indianapolis. Technically, Michigan State could still win a Big Ten title and reach the Rose Bowl but that would require a Michigan collapse that’s more ridiculous than the scenario we’re running through right now, so we’ll just move on.
The Rose Bowl contractually includes the Big Ten champion each year when it is not a CFP semifinal. This is one of those years and if Michigan is in the playoff, the Rose Bowl has to pick a replacement from the conference to face a Pac-12 foe. The criteria includes CFP rankings, head-to-head wins, division champs and recent Rose Bowl appearances.
If Michigan is in the playoff and Michigan State runs the table, the Spartans finish second in the Big Ten East Division with wins against Ohio State and Penn State. That puts them in a great position.
Wisconsin was widely expected to win the West Division this season, but it has turned into a mess and Northwestern (5-4, 5-1) is alone in first place. There’s a chance the Wildcats win the division and lose to Michigan in the conference championship game and have five or even six losses. They haven’t played in the Rose Bowl since 1996 and won in East Lansing last month, but that isn’t a highly-appealing resume to bring Northwestern to the West Coast.
If you toss out the other West Division teams – Wisconsin, Purdue and Iowa aren’t great options – it comes down to which program from the East Division is most appealing to the Rose Bowl. In this scenario it would basically be between Michigan State and Ohio State.
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The Spartans, who were surprisingly No. 18 in this week’s CFP rankings, would end the regular season with a five-game winning streak while the No. 10 Buckeyes would have lost three of their last five. That would likely push Michigan State past Ohio State in the rankings.
Michigan State appeared in the Rose Bowl more recently with a win against Stanford to cap the 2013 season while Ohio State hasn’t played in Pasadena since a victory against Oregon four years before that. Although the Rose Bowl comes the with prestige and pageantry unmatched by nearly every other bowl, it’s still about making money and selling tickets.
When Ohio State throttled Michigan State 48-3 in Columbus last year with sole possession of first place in the East Division on the line, there were swaths of empty seats. That was because the Buckeyes were one week removed from being upset at Iowa and that ultimately cost them a spot in the playoff. The expectations at Ohio State are about as high as they get – after Alabama, at least – so I don’t know how motivated that fan base would be to travel to California for a three-loss team.
Making a case for Michigan State to play in the Rose Bowl remains a bit of a stretch. The Spartans could still drop two of their final three games and end up in the TaxSlayer Bowl, or something close to it. But, a late-December flight to California is a possibility that has been mentioned between players.
“A little bit, yeah,” quarterback Brian Lewerke said. “Once we kind of get to the end of the season, you start seeing the bowl predictions and all we can do now, now that we’re in bowl position, is just try and win out and win as many games as we can, just keep trying to get to a better and better bowl game for us.”
If Michigan State beats Ohio State on Saturday, then the chance of green and white in Pasadena becomes a little more real. Until then, I continue to be baffled by how the scenario is still possible this season.
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