Identities are at stake in the Cotton Bowl on Thursday night.
Michigan State is one victory away from losing its cherished underdog identity. Alabama is one victory away – OK, two – from regaining its cherished master-of-the-universe identity.
Beyond the very tangible stakes – winner advances to the College Football Playoff championship game – there is a vital intangible at stake: how these programs and their fans view themselves, and how they are viewed from the outside.
For years, the Spartans have been steadily breaking down the walls keeping them from college football’s inner sanctum. They have won two Big Ten championships in the past three seasons. They have defeated a Pac-12 champion in the Rose Bowl. They have defeated a Big 12 champion in the Cotton Bowl. They have beaten Oregon. They have owned the rivalry with historic overlord Michigan. They have upset Ohio State twice in the past three meetings, with much at stake.
Despite all that, Michigan State hasn’t yet joined The Club. When five-star recruits mention their dream schools, the one in East Lansing isn’t often heard. When you list the bluebloods of the sport, the Spartans still don’t see their name on the list.
Which is the way they want it, really. It’s been their role for so long that it feels natural.
Motivation comes more readily to those who believe they have something to prove. Less pressure comes with being the hunter than the hunted. In modern sports, everyone wants to bathe in the icy waters of disrespect – real or perceived – and try to prove the alleged doubters and haters wrong.
Michigan State can hear disrespect the way Tiger Woods hears camera shutters from 50 yards away in his backswing. The Spartans have uncanny ears when it comes to that sort of thing. If a bartender in Budapest says Sparty will be routed by the Crimson Tide, Michigan State will find out about it and rally around it.
In the tireless search for snubs, the Spartans have been given three gifts heading into this game: the point spread, Derrick Henry’s “Michigan” comment and the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Michigan State is accustomed to being a bowl underdog – this is the ninth straight time it’s happened, and it’s won the last four. (In recent bowl history, the Las Vegas disrespect was real.) But in none of those previous eight bowl games were the Spartans double-digit underdogs, as they are here. A 10-point spread seems too much, but to the Spartans it feels just right.
“It’s when we thrive,” center Jack Allen said.
Henry, Alabama’s Heisman Trophy-winning running back, was interviewed on ESPN after the playoff pairings were announced. The world heard him refer to “Michigan” as Alabama’s opponent. Henry insisted this week that he said Michigan State – “I might have said it low, but I said Michigan State.” It must have been very low.
And there was the SI cover that now lives in infamy, referring to a story on Spartans coach “Mike” Dantonio. Mark Dantonio, the actual Spartans coach, kept a copy for his brother, whose name is Mike.
So Michigan State has had a steady December diet of disrespect to chew on. But if the Spartans win Thursday, they will be leaving being the outsider status they’ve known and loved for nearly half a century.
You can’t beat Michigan, Ohio State and Alabama in the same season and still be an underdog. You can’t beat Jim Harbaugh, Urban Meyer and Nick Saban in the same season and pretend you haven’t arrived. Do those things, and you are The Establishment.
By next season, there will be almost nobody on the Michigan State roster who remembers what a bad season feels like. The last one was a 7-6 dud in 2012 amid great expectations. Since, the Spartans have gone 13-1, 11-2 and the current 12-1.
The struggle is no longer real in East Lansing. The program has changed radically. Beating Alabama would cut the last ties with the gritty outsider program identity.
The Crimson Tide, on the other hand, can reintroduce itself to its preferred identity as the ruler of all college football. After winning three national titles in four seasons from 2009-12, it’s been an intolerable two years without playing for one.
The 2013 and ’14 seasons began the way they usually do for Alabama in the Nick Saban era: ranked Nos. 1 (2013) or 2 (2014) and expected to play for the biggest prize come year’s end. In 2013, the year ended with ’Bama on the wrong end of a jaw-dropping, 109-yard touchdown play with no time left, then a dismal Sugar Bowl defeat at the hands of Okalahoma as a huge favorite. In 2014, the year ended in the Sugar Bowl again – this time losing to Ohio State in the CFP semifinal as an eight-point favorite.
The Ohio State loss put a screeching halt on the SEC’s superiority over the Big Ten, and it dealt a blow to the Tide’s perceived invincibility under Saban. The Auburn and Oklahoma losses had been rationalized by some as a fluke and a letdown, respectively, but there was no spinning the defeat at the hands of Meyer and the Buckeyes.
Coming off that loss, Alabama began this season ranked outside the top two for the first time since 2009. The Tide was all the way down at No. 3. Not exactly Spartan-level disrespect, but the Ohio State defeat left a mark.
“We were very disappointed in our playoff game a year ago,” Saban said. “... Even though it was a very competitive, tough, seven-point game, I felt like our team did not play the way you would like for them to play. And I think they felt the same way, very disappointed. And I think that probably was one of the catalysts for this year’s team sort of having something to prove.”
The Tide has proved plenty in going 12-1 and winning the SEC title again. But another loss at this stage – to another Big Ten opponent, as a heavy favorite – would be a bitter disappointment. And it would leave Alabama outside of the title game for the third straight season.
That’s not much of a drought for the rest of the nation, but they think differently in Alabama – and in the Saban household. In his last 10 years as a college coach – the eight previous at Alabama and his last two at LSU – he’s never gone three straight years without winning a national championship.
Winning Thursday does not guarantee a national title – that would have to come Jan. 11th in Glendale, Ariz. But you can’t get there, and get back to undisputed King of Football status, without winning here first.
Two teams, two identities at stake. One program trying to regain its sense of self; one program could be forced to relinquish it.
No comments:
Post a Comment