Hey Joe: On the Cotton Bowl comeback, Harbaugh nausea

Let's be honest, I'm just coming up with a lame reason to get Jim Harbaugh's name in a headline so I can siphon some of those precious web hits – our Michigan beat writer, Mark Snyder, has the Internet clout right now of a Kate Upton.

There were some nauseating moments in the past few days, though, and I'm not talking about the hire itself – the obvious No. 1 choice for U-M – or anything Harbaugh said. I'm talking about some things I heard and read from the national perspective on what it means.

And I'm not talking about the sweeping conclusion that U-M will be back contending for championships soon. Frankly, that would have been my expectation regardless. That program has too much going for it, built up over decades of success, to stretch this downturn to a decade-plus. Those who have argued Michigan and MSU can't be good at the same time are about to learn otherwise.

I'm talking about the lazy laser focus on the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry and the "Big Ten needs Michigan" stuff. The Big Ten needs as many nationally relevant teams as possible. Period. U-M has the resources and tradition to be one, so U-M's return would help. That's fine. But if others pick up the slack, that's just as fine.

What are people saying today about the Big Ten? Is U-M's 5-7 season detracting from Ohio State's upset of Alabama to get to the national championship game? Or MSU's astounding 42-41 comeback win over Baylor? Or Wisconsin's dramatic comeback win over Auburn?

Is there an asterisk next to Oregon's trouncing of Florida State to get to the other side of the title game because USC isn't great anymore? Does the recent dip of Texas mean current Big 12 powers Baylor and TCU shouldn't be taken seriously? When Florida and Tennessee ruled the SEC and Alabama was down, did that league battle perception problems? Or is it a problem now that Florida and Tennessee are down?

OK, maybe today isn't the best day to talk SEC football. Now that the top four teams in the SEC West – held up all season as college football's standard bearers, particularly by ESPN (with some help from our Drew Sharp) – have lost their bowl games, the SEC is absorbing some less-than-fawning words. I'm quite sure that hasn't happened since some time before Urban Meyer and Florida crushed Ohio State in a 2007 BCS title game upset, which started both leagues on very different perception paths.

Are people overreacting now? Absolutely. But that's football. One game can change the way a team or program – or league -- is perceived. One play can completely change a game.

Take, for example, Thursday's Cotton Bowl (438 words in and your friendly neighborhood MSU beat writer is finally talking about the MSU game. Nice blog).

Here's how I was leading my game story until the Spartans somehow turned a blowout loss into the biggest comeback and one of the most dramatic victories of Mark Dantonio's eight-year tenure (2010 vs. Notre Dame and 2011 vs. Wisconsin come to mind):

The shootout was on – and then Michigan State dropped out.

Baylor kept shooting, and hitting. The No. 4 Bears had bombs for touchdowns and trick plays for touchdowns, and they even got one into the hands of 390-pound offensive guard LaQuan McGowan.

The No. 7 Spartans returned in time to make Thursday's Cotton Bowl a fun one, but they ultimately had too many mistakes on offense and too few big plays on defense in a season-ending loss in front of 71,464 fans – the vast majority cheering for Baylor -- at AT&T Stadium.

A day after Big 12 co-champ TCU made a statement about the injustice of its playoff exclusion with a rout of Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl, Big 12 co-champ Baylor did the same against MSU (10-3)….

And so on. Baylor made a statement. MSU couldn't hang. And the Spartans enter an offseason filled with questions after a successful 10-win season that included no signature victories.

I added in the "Spartans returned in time to make it a fun one," by the way, after the game started to tighten in the fourth quarter. Had Marcus Rush not put a paw on that 43-yard field goal, the play that made the comeback possible, the story would have been that MSU stuck together and showed some fight BUT gave up a school record for passing yards and came up empty this season on big wins.

But Rush blocked the kick. RJ Williamson returned it. Connor Cook, after the worst pick of his career and about half a game of inaccuracy that stymied MSU's offense, made the clutch pass to Tony Lippett on fourth-and-10, then the clutch touchdown pass to Keith Mumphery on third-and-10. Baylor tightened up on offense, never ran the ball at all (minus-20 yards, to be exact), couldn't handle Cook when he got rolling. Bears receiver Corey Coleman got the penalty of the game, a facemask on Tony Lippett that pushed Baylor back and ultimately led to the field-goal try. Coleman said later his finger got stuck and that he didn't think he should have been called, but that was an easy call. And it was a break for MSU.

So because of those plays in a game that can be as wacky and unforgiving as any, the story is that MSU was shredded downfield and subpar on offense for much of the game BUT relied again on its extraordinary team chemistry to pull off a win for the ages. And that is the story. Did MSU's team chemistry actually make those late plays happen? No. But if the Spartans didn't have it in bunches, they wouldn't have been in any kind of position to make them.

And we wouldn't have heard things after the game like this from Dantonio: "I really probably can't put it into words, but we just kept pace. We didn't panic. … It's a feeling of belief in each other, that's what we have. We don't give up on each other."

And this from Joel Heath: "I've never felt anything like that, even in the Rose Bowl. Because we came back from so much, at the very last minute."

And this from Kurtis Drummond: "It's almost indescribable how that game ended. I just love this team – this is something I'll remember forever."

And this from RJ Williamson: "This is a trampoline game right here -- this should springboard us into a great season in 2015."

That's possible, though the (very unsurprising) decision of Trae Waynes to leave for the NFL is a hit. Shilique Calhoun is not decided yet and seems to be somewhat conflicted, though even if he projects as a second-round pick I would think it would be hard for him to stay. Even if he bolts, MSU has a lot of material up front, and a big need for a cornerback or two to emerge. And an offense that could be scary good, with a lot of talent blocking for Connor Cook and trying to replace Jeremy Langford, and a need for someone on the outside to become a No. 1 receiver.

The Spartans will be a preseason top-10 team, or close to it. Yet they'll hear so much Harbaugh talk in the next few months – the proclamations that marked the beginnings of the Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke eras will be meek whispers by comparison – that they won't feel like one. It's probably better that way for them anyway.

"I don't know that we necessarily use it," MSU offensive line coach Mark Staten said of the attention given to U-M and other programs as motivation. "But we definitely feel it. We love that scrappy, underdog mentality, our kids embrace that."

The outside assistance is probably going to end at some point, if Dantonio's Spartans keep winning like this. But a lot of people out there don't realize this program has 53 wins the past five seasons, most in the Big Ten, with four of 11 wins or more, two Big Ten titles and now consecutive wins in BCS/CFP bowls. MSU's four-game bowl winning streak counts Baylor, Stanford, TCU and Georgia as victims.

The national folks, Kirk Herbstreit and some others excluded, haven't caught on. But the galling thing about some of the things that have been thrown around in the past week is the complete lack of respect for Wisconsin. That program is more than two decades into an outstanding run in the Big Ten. It has a brand that has persisted through multiple coaches. It has been as consistent as anyone since 1993. Yet I'm hearing that the Big Ten can't be good if U-M, Ohio State, Penn State and Nebraska aren't good.

This isn't a conspiracy, it's just an inability to see that scholarship limits and serious investment in so many programs and the resulting parity makes it more difficult to preordain in this sport. It wasn't that way in the 1970s, when you knew one of two teams would win the Big Ten. It's that way now. Even as I say that, Ohio State's surprise run has some awarding the next three or so Big Ten titles to the Buckeyes, unless Harbaugh can get it revved up before then so the 10-year war that ended in 1978 can resume.

The thinking of some is that the recruiting, paired with superior coaching, will simply be too good at both places for the others to overcome. Maybe they're right. But I see at least three teams good enough for the playoff this year that have never been considered for February championships – MSU, Baylor and TCU. Wisconsin has been exceeding its recruiting rankings for a long time now.

MSU's success against U-M in recent years is contrary to the rankings, and MSU's success overall is independent of U-M. It's not like the Spartans have owned in-state recruiting in that time, and it's not like either program can live off in-state recruiting. MSU has found stability and consistency, and U-M has been trying to get them back. There's no reason they both can't win.

I wasn't surprised that Dantonio shut down Harbaugh questions and seemed more perturbed than usual when asked about U-M stuff. You have to remember that he was coming off a week in which Pittsburgh managed to extend the Pat Narduzzi story to five days, and that was directly followed by the #Harbsteria. The Cotton Bowl seemed at times like the afterthought of an afterthought, and Dantonio is sensitive in the first place.

(Also, you shouldn't be surprised that Dantonio and his team were asked Harbaugh questions. You seriously think there's any way those questions aren't asked? These are in-state rivals and this was a huge news story. They're going to be asked about each other. They are every time. Get over it.)

On Thursday afternoon, I saw a red-eyed, smiling Dantonio come out of that MSU locker room on the way to his news conference, after the comeback win of a career. One kick a few inches higher, one pass a split-second too late, one hand that brushes instead of grabs a facemask, and it's a totally different expression. A totally different feeling. A totally different story.

It's ridiculous, really. And it's why this sport is so fun to cover. It's a lot less predictable than some would have you believe.

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