He snuck up the off-center gap and leapt just as the quarterback released his throw. And by the time Michigan State linebacker Joe Bachie reached the apex of his jump, he’d thrust his meaty left hand high enough to deflect the pass.

If the ball settles to the ground, it’s a nice defensive play, and all it would’ve cost Utah State was a down. But as soon as Bachie batted the ball into the air, he landed, spun to his left and slipped under the careening pass in time to catch it.

Interception. Game over. The Spartans had done it again.

Yes, it was against Utah State, no one’s idea of a College Football Playoff favorite. And if MSU just had a habit of squeaking by the underdogs on its schedule, this would be a different column.

But they don’t. They win games like this against the best teams on its schedule, too. All the time.

From behind. In the fourth quarter. With Big Ten titles on the line. In bowl games.

It’s what Mark Dantonio does.

And what Jim Harbaugh hasn’t been able to do.

More on the Spartans:

Michigan State football OL knows it must block better at Arizona State

Michigan State football vs. Arizona State: Scouting report, prediction

If you’re looking for an explanation as to why MSU wins its share of big games and U-M does not, it’s because of plays like Bachie’s, or Felton Davis’. The one where the Spartans’ senior receiver stretched out to haul in a 31-yard catch that set up the game-winning touchdown.

At U-M, those plays have too often gone the other way. Like they did at Notre Dame, in the end zone when Irish receiver Chris Finke, a 5-foot-10, former walk-on, outjumped Wolverine safety Brad Hawkins to snag a 43-yard touchdown … as if he were Randy Moss.

Hawkins had just entered the game. So cut him some slack.

Still, he had a chance to make a play and couldn’t. It’s the story of Harbaugh’s tenure.

In a tight game, especially against rivals, someone else is usually doing the Mossing.

Why?

That’s a tough question to answer. Just as it’s hard to explain MSU’s late-game success under Dantonio. Even he can’t. And he said so after MSU’s last-minute win Saturday.

If you press him for a reason, he’ll say it’s anything but luck. Which is interesting, considering he admits a team needs breaks.

Semantics aside, his success in tight games is nearly unassailable. It can’t be all about the direction of a tipped pass.

Bachie made that play to seal the game because it’s what Dantonio’s best players do. Whether it’s the players he recruits, or the coaches who help develop them, or the personality of Dantonio himself that’s embedded into his team, it keeps happening.

While in Ann Arbor it does not. At least not lately.

Maybe that will change this season. Maybe the team that came up short in South Bend, Ind., last weekend will begin to make more of its own luck.

The fundamentals must be there, of course. U-M's offensive line must block and protect better and its defense — which was dominant in stretches against Notre Dame — needs to balance its aggressiveness against its occasional vulnerability to the big play.

That second part should happen. We’ll see about the first.

Yet even despite those issues in the opener last Saturday, the Wolverines still had a chance to make a play. To knock down a ball on defense. To steal a pass on offense. To force an extra sack or turnover and kill a drive.

Harbaugh talks often about forging ahead and ascending players and putting in the work. He sounds like a foreman in a factory at times. And that’s fine.

The trouble, though, is that when the assembly line breaks down, somebody, somewhere, has to show the improvisational skill and fortitude to fix it. That’s how close games between two evenly matched teams are won. And that’s how Dantonio has built his program.

He and his players embrace the weekly struggle. They expect they’ll have to bat a ball or dive for a catch with the clock winding down.

And then they do it.

“I don't care who you play against,” Dantonio said this week, “it's challenging. Everybody is going through these things … You want to pound somebody 50 to nothing, that's not happening too often. It certainly hasn't happened here in my time. We're just eking by, just trying to find those inches.”

Inches Harbaugh has yet to consistently find.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.