MSU FB Pendleton hobbled, but crucial in key drive

Joe Rexrode | Detroit Free Press

EAST LANSING – On 12 of the 22 plays on the game-winning drive against Iowa, Trevon Pendleton was on the field for Michigan State, doing what he has done for four seasons as the standard setter for fullback play in the Mark Dantonio era.

The fifth-year senior and former walk-on took out defensive end Matt Nelson with a cut block on the first play Saturday. He did the same to defensive end Parker Hesse on the seventh play, a 4-yard run for LJ Scott on third-and-3. Pendleton reached down and grabbed his left knee after that one.

He stayed in for pass protection on Connor Cook’s crucial third-and-8 completion to Aaron Burbridge. Three plays later, he pancaked defensive end Nate Meier and had to stay down for a moment. A trainer came out to get Pendleton, but he popped up, walked off and insisted to head trainer Sally Nogle on the sideline that he was OK.

It was fair to wonder. A week earlier, Pendleton suffered a Grade 2 tear of the medial collateral ligament in the knee, said his brother, Jerrod Pendleton.

That’s an injury that typically requires weeks to heal. Pendleton hardly practiced in preparation for MSU’s 16-13 Big Ten championship win over Iowa to earn a College Football Playoff matchup with No. 2 Alabama. He was a game-time decision and had to wear a brace, but he was determined to play.

And he was all over the 22-play, 82-yard drive that won the game for the No. 3 Spartans (12-1), including a key block on Scott’s 1-yard touchdown run with 27 seconds left. Pendleton’s performance through pain and limited lateral movement belongs in the MSU history books along with the drive itself.

“He’s gonna push it for the guys around him, and that’s what makes him special,” said senior center Jack Allen, who served as a second fullback in a personnel twist that helped the Spartans bulldoze past the Hawkeyes and into the Dec. 31 Cotton Bowl semifinal against the Crimson Tide (12-1).

“He gutted it out, and he found a way,” Dantonio said of the 6-foot, 250-pound Pendleton. “When you get to these moments in your life, you’re going to find out some way, somehow to get on the football field if you’re capable, if you’re able. That’s what happened, and we’ve seen that across the board.”

Allen is one of several players who have battled through pain to give needed performances this year. Cook clearly labored Saturday with a right shoulder sprain he suffered Nov. 14. That shoulder is MSU’s big injury question entering the postseason, and Cook said Sunday “the next few weeks are going to be huge” for its healing.

That should be true of Pendleton as well, who won’t need surgery and expects to be at full speed for Alabama.

“He said, ‘We’re gonna win a national championship — if I can get ready in six days, I’ll be fine in three or four weeks,’ ” Jerrod Pendleton said, paraphrasing his brother.

Pendleton deemed himself at 60% and didn’t have his usual side-to-side quickness Saturday. But that was a dramatic improvement from a week earlier, when he twisted the knee in a 55-16 win over Penn State, watched the second half on crutches and was told he probably wouldn’t play against Iowa. Pendleton disagreed.

“He said, ‘No, I’m playing. I’ve waited five years for this,’ ” said Jerrod Pendleton, who coaches at Portsmouth (Ohio) West High where he and Trevon played and their father, Garrett, previously coached. “My parents and I kind of expressed, ‘You’ve got to be smart about this,’ but he was set on it in his mind. No one was going to tell him he was sitting.”

Pendleton said after the game that by “the middle of the week,” his knee felt “good.” But it went all the way up until kickoff before his insistence and demonstrations of mobility clinched the start.

Pendleton has made big plays over the years, including a touchdown catch in the 2014 Rose Bowl win over Stanford and another at Ohio State on Nov. 21, but it’s his effectiveness as a blocker that makes him most valuable. That was especially important against Iowa, and Pendleton spearheaded a drive for the ages.

Two plays after he left the field and had a brief chat with Nogle, Pendleton was back on the field for third-and-1 from the Iowa 15. He took safety Jordan Lomax out of the play, helping Scott barrel for a 2-yard gain.

Four plays later, on MSU’s fourth-and-2 option play from the Iowa 5, Pendleton went in motion and lined up wide, then eliminated cornerback Desmond King as Cook converted. On the next play, Pendleton was back in his normal spot and drove linebacker Cole Fisher into the end zone, but Scott was flipped and came up short of scoring.

And that ended up being just fine with MSU, which got the clock down to 33 seconds before the winning play. After going left behind Allen and Pendleton on two straight plays, MSU called “Jack Across,” with Allen going in motion and crashing into the line on the left side as a decoy.

“Hoping we’d catch them where they’d think, ‘Here they go again,’ and then we go the other way,” Allen said.

Scott followed Pendleton around the right edge. Much of the winning play was sheer power, will and awareness by Scott. But the initial opening was created when a hobbled fullback smacked into an outside linebacker.

“I cut the edge piece,” Pendleton said of Ben Niemann, “and I honestly didn’t see the scraping linebacker (Josey Jewell) that made the initial hit. So I thought we were in clean. I was just waiting for the roar, on the ground. And I didn’t hear it right away, and I saw (Scott) trying to reach the ball across and I was afraid it was gonna get knocked out. I kind of took off toward it to make a play on it if it got knocked out, but he made a great play and got us in.”

Contact Joe Rexrode: jrexrode@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @joerexrode. Check out his MSU blog at freep.com/heyjoe.

Cotton Bowl

Matchup: No. 3 Michigan State (12-1, 8-1 Big Ten) vs. No. 2 Alabama (12-1, 8-1 SEC).

Kickoff: 8 p.m., Dec. 31, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas.

TV: ESPN.

Line: Crimson Tide by 91/2.

Tickets: MSU’s ticket allotment of 13,000 will be sold based on donor level and demand at msuspartans.com or 800-GO-STATE (467-8283). Club seats are $240 apiece, reserved seats $150. A parking pass is $45.