Think of the many long droughts which still exist in modern American sports.
The Chicago Cubs’ World Series dry spell is number one.
The Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions failing to make any of the first 50 Super Bowls would also rate highly on the list of parched-earth portraits. The city of Cleveland’s professional sports title drought is a story in itself. The city of Buffalo’s lack of an NFL or NHL championship certainly merits inclusion.
Northwestern never making the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? Yes, that’s an all-timer of a sports drought. Duke hasn’t won a bowl game since 1961, and will try to consign that reality to the dustbin of history when it faces Indiana in the Pinstripe Bowl.
These and other sports droughts gain more and more weight in — and over — their affected communities as they continue. Snapping the drought brings forth an upwelling of exultation which is impossible to measure or fully appreciate.
The 2015 Michigan State Spartans will attempt to snap a national championship drought in East Lansing, but simply by making the College Football Playoff, they’ve already brought a 50-year wait to an end.
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College football’s history — marked for decades by the old “poll and bowl” system before the Bowl Championship Series of 1998-2013 and the current playoff format — has been defined by messy disputes and competing claims to national championships. With this point in mind, you might feel justified in saying that Michigan State did not win the national title in either 1965 or 1966. However, national titles were awarded before the bowls back then, so even though the Spartans didn’t win a bowl game in either one of those seasons, they can’t be excluded from the national-title conversation in either case. Their claims can be eroded or reduced, but not eliminated.
Regardless of where you come down on the national championship debates of 1965 and ’66, this much is safe to say: When Michigan State plays Alabama in the 2015 Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve, the Spartans will take part in the school’s most significant bowl game since the 1966 Rose Bowl against UCLA.
It was at the end of the 1965 season that an unbeaten MSU team, coached by the iconic Duffy Daugherty, tried to leave no doubt that it was in fact the best in college football. Already the 1965 national champion in the eyes of many, Michigan State aimed to settle the argument (with Alabama) once and for all, in a way that history could never author an alternative reading.
The Spartans did contain UCLA quarterback and future (1967) Heisman Trophy winner Gary Beban on the first day of 1966. Playing in UCLA’s back yard, the Spartans’ defense — resolute as it always was at that magical point in MSU football history — held up its part of the bargain. However, a Michigan State offense which had averaged 25 points per game coming into Pasadena was stymied by the Bruins. MSU scored less than half of its season-long average that day, and when UCLA defensive back Bob Stiles made a remarkable tackle on a Michigan State 2-point conversion in the final minute, the Spartans’ dreams of an unbeaten season died, 14-12.
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Michigan State didn’t get its grand Rose Bowl victory lap half a century ago. Nevertheless, the program tasted greatness at the highest level under Daugherty, a mentor to great coaches of the future such as Bill Yeoman of Houston.
The Spartans did make — and win — the 1988 Rose Bowl under then-coach George Perles. They won the Rose Bowl two seasons ago over Stanford, under current coach Mark Dantonio. Their Cotton Bowl victory over Baylor on New Year’s Day of this year rates as a rather important moment in school history. However, the last Michigan State bowl game drenched in national-championship prestige and historical significance was that 1966 Rose Bowl against UCLA.
For the past several seasons, Dantonio has pushed against the weight and the tide of history, trying to fight the idea that Michigan State can’t play for championships. Now, Dantonio will truly fight the Tide — a Crimson version from Alabama — for the right to play in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on Jan. 11.
This season in East Lansing has already crossed a threshold. Michigan State enters the bowl season playing for all the marbles, something not seen since the end of the 1965 season, half a century ago. What Dantonio has restored today, Daugherty established in a different time:
Michigan State football has come full circle.
The Spartans labored for decades as the Big Ten program with more than enough talent, more than enough resources, more than enough of a capacity to put the pieces together, if only the right coach came along. If there ever was a Midwestern equivalent to 2007-era Clemson or modern-day UCLA, Michigan State was it.
Was — note the past tense. Not any longer. As is the case with Clemson, Sparty has shed its old and accumulated baggage.
By cracking the College Football Playoff, the Spartans have recalled memories of their program’s finest days… and of a time when a bowl trip wasn’t just a consolation prize, but a chance to make a lasting national statement with resonance that would reach through the pages of time.
The 50-year wait for Michigan State is over. A bowl game with everything on the line has once again crossed the program’s path.
When this season’s Cotton Bowl kicks off, old-time Michigan State fans will finally witness an event on par with the 1966 Rose Bowl. It’s been a long time coming.
