Spartans Beat Georgia 33-30 in 3 OTs at BetLM

Spartans Beat Georgia 33–30 in 3 OTs

TAMPA, Fla. – As he’s done so often over the past four sea­sons, Kirk Cousins kept his com­po­sure and found a way to help Michi­gan State win.

The senior shrugged off a slow start Mon­day and gave the 12th-ranked Spar­tans a nice part­ing gift– a 33–30 triple over­time win against No. 18 Geor­gia in the Out­back Bowl.

The vic­tory ended a five-game bowl los­ing streak dat­ing to Michi­gan State’s win in the 2001 Sil­i­con Val­ley Bowl. It also stated the Spar­tans’ case for a top-10 final ranking.

“We knew going into the game that it wasn’t going to be per­fect,” said Cousins, who threw for 300 yards, one touch­down and three interceptions.

“Geor­gia has two first-team All-Americans. They have the third-best defense in the coun­try. They have record break­ers on offense. … They’re going to make plays. It was a mat­ter of weath­er­ing that storm and being able to come back and not give up. We did that time and again, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”

Cousins led an 85-yard drive scor­ing to tie it in the clos­ing sec­onds of reg­u­la­tion, and Dan Conroy’s 28-yard field goal in the third over­time won it. The Spar­tans, who trailed 16–0 at half­time, had been 0–4 in bowl games under coach Mark Dantonio.

“All week, all month, really, there was a sense of urgency in our prepa­ra­tion because the fact that for me as a senior, this was the last shot,” Cousins said. “Cer­tainly all game long we felt that same way.”

Georgia’s Blair Walsh became the South­east­ern Conference’s career scor­ing leader with a field goal in the sec­ond extra period. But he missed a 42-yarder in the first over­time after con­ser­v­a­tive play-calling and had a 47-yard attempt blocked on the final play of the game.

Nose tackle Anthony Rashad White got a hand on the poten­tial tying kick, set­ting off a cel­e­bra­tion among Spar­tans fans in the crowd of 49,429 at Ray­mond James Stadium.

The Spar­tans handed the Big Ten its lone win in three bowl matchups Mon­day against SEC oppo­nents– Florida beat Ohio State and South Car­olina stopped Nebraska.

“Big win against a great foot­ball team, against an SEC team, against a team that won their divi­sion and that was 10–2 in the reg­u­lar sea­son. … There’s not a foot­ball team that we can­not play with and not win against,” Dan­to­nio said.

“We’ve beaten every foot­ball team in the Big Ten in the last four years. The stan­dard has been set by our seniors. … Two 11-win sea­sons. There’s not too many foot­ball teams in the coun­try that are say­ing that right now. I would think that this, hope­fully, helps solid­ify a top-10 rank­ing in this year’s final polls.”

Geor­gia (10–4) fin­ished on a two-game los­ing streak, includ­ing a lop­sided loss to top-ranked LSU in the SEC cham­pi­onship game. The Bull­dogs beat Michi­gan State in the 2009 Cap­i­tal One Bowl, one of four bowl losses the Spar­tans had under Dan­to­nio dur­ing their stretch of post­sea­son futility.

“It’s rough,” Geor­gia receiver Tavar­res King said. “Every time you lose a game you think about it until you play another one, and we don’t play another one for over 200 days. So it’s going to be on our minds and in the back of our heads.”

Cousins guided Michi­gan State on its late drive with­out the aid of any time­outs, and Le’Veon Bell’s sec­ond touch­down of the game on a 1-yard run erased a 27–20 deficit. Cousins threw a 7-yard TD pass to Keith Nichol mid­way through the period and fin­ished the day as Michi­gan State’s career pass­ing and total offense leader.

The senior from Hol­land, Mich., was inter­cepted in the first over­time. After the Bull­dogs had a short run on their first play in over­time, coach Mark Richt elected to sim­ply cen­ter the ball for a field goal try on third down, and Walsh’s kick was wide.

“It just went a lit­tle bit to the right. I don’t know what pulled it that way,” said Walsh, who moved ahead of Billy Ben­nett on the SEC career scor­ing list with 412 points when his 47-yarder gave Geor­gia a 30–27 lead in the sec­ond over­time. “I’d trade all the points I could to just have three points (at the end) for us. I mean that.”

The Spar­tans’ come­back over­shad­owed a stand­out per­for­mance by Georgia’s Mr. Every­thing, Bran­don Boykin. The cor­ner­back scored a safety, returned a punt 92 yards for a touch­down and caught a 13-yard TD pass that helped the Bull­dogs take a late lead that one of the nation’s stingi­est defenses couldn’t pro­tect down the stretch.

Aaron Mur­ray was 20 of 32 for 288 yards, one touch­down and two inter­cep­tions for Geor­gia. Back home and play­ing in a sta­dium a few miles from where he starred in high school for Tampa Plant, the red­shirt sopho­more teamed on an 80-yard scor­ing pass with King, who had six recep­tions for 205 yards.

Boykin tack­led Keshawn Mar­tin in the end zone for a safety on Michi­gan State’s first offen­sive play, con­verg­ing on the receiver at almost the same time as Cousins’ side screen. The 2–0 lead stood for Geor­gia until Mur­ray made his long TD throw to King, who set­tled under the per­fectly thrown pass at the Spar­tans 25 and never broke stride to get into the end zone.

Less than two min­utes later, Boykin brought Geor­gia fans to their feet when he set­tled under Mike Sadler’s punt at his own 8 and retreated to the 5 before cut­ting back toward the mid­dle of the field, find­ing his way through a maze of defend­ers and out­run­ning the pur­suit to score on the longest punt return in Out­back Bowl history.

Boykin’s sec­ond TD, fin­ish­ing a five-play, 81-yard drive fueled by Murray’s 53-yard com­ple­tion to King, put Geor­gia up 25–20. Murray’s 2-point con­ver­sion pass to Mal­colm Mitchell gave the Bull­dogs a 7-point advan­tage before Cousins went to work and revived Michi­gan State’s hopes.

The Spar­tans were lim­ited to two first downs and just 72 yards total offense to trail 16–0 at the half. Cousins finally got them on track after the first of Dar­queze Dennard’s two inter­cep­tions set up a nine-play, 48-yard drive that Bell fin­ished with an 8-yard touch­down run.

Dennard’s 38-yard inter­cep­tion return for a touch­down drew Michi­gan State within 16–14, and Cousins’ TD pass to Nichol gave the Spar­tans a short-lived 20–19 lead.

Boykin had 183 all-purpose yards, includ­ing four kick­off returns for 70 yards and 8 yards rush­ing on two car­ries. The senior said he’d trade of all his pro­duc­tion if the Bull­dogs had been able to fin­ish off Michi­gan State.

“Of course I’m upset right now that we lost and I’ll never get to play a col­lege game again,” Boykin said. “With­out a doubt, I’d take away my per­for­mance if we can get a victory.”

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice, For more col­lege foot­ball news see: Spar­tans beat Geor­gia 33–30 in 3 OTs .

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