Hlas column: Indy's stadium becomes Big Ten's speedway

INDIANAPOLIS - Sure, Big Ten football title game No. 5 or 10 or 25 was good, they'll say, but was no match for the first one.

The last three Southeastern Conference championship games were decided by 39, 32 and 32 points, respectively. Saturday night's Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game, the Big 12's de facto title match, was a 44-10 Cowboys romp.

Much as I enjoy sticking pins in the Big Ten's balloons full of pompous hot air, the league got its inaugural football title game right in two vital ways. One, in the quality of Wisconsin's 42-39 win over Michigan State itself. Give those two teams a hand.

The second way was the league's choice to place the game in Indy's Lucas Oil Stadium with its retractable roof instead of Chicago's open-air Soldier Field.

As much fun it can be to see teams slug it out as they're slogging through snow or warding off wind, you really don't want a league-championship contest that's altered by the weather. This game had play after play after play to be enjoyed, and re-enjoyed later in highlight reels. None needed the influence of bad weather to mess with them.

When you have quarterbacks as good as Russell Wilson of Wisconsin and Michigan State's Kirk Cousins of Michigan State, you don't want them trying to throw the ball through icy gusts. Ditto UW running back Montee Ball, who had a pretty sweet 32-yard pass himself, to Wilson in the first quarter.

Leave slippery turf for games of less consequence. Let Ball and his Spartan counterpart, Le'Veon Bell, run without hesitation.

Heck, let them lateral without fear of falling, too. Michigan State executed what had been the play of the game for a while with a lateral. But there was a lot of memorable football remaining before the ultimate play of the game that was a bummer, a running-into-the-kicker penalty on Spartan safety Isaiah Lewis.

Lewis is from Indianapolis. He probably wasn't humming "Back Home Again in Indiana" on the flight back to Lansing.

The first-half the Badgers and Spartans staged for an announced house of 64,152 and the nation was climate-controlled craziness, stuff that surely changed many fans' perceptions about Big Ten football.

First, it was Wisconsin running (and passing) amok with feature back Montee Ball. The junior bulled and spun for 105 rushing yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter, and threw a pinpoint 32-yard completion to his quarterback, Russell Wilson.

Wisconsin led 21-7, and another exodus of Badger fans from Pewaukee and Potosi to Pasadena seemed imminent. Just as media mopes like me started clearing one of the three spaces on our Heisman ballots for Ball, then came the second quarter. Ball disappeared, and stayed gone for quite a while. He had just 32 rushing yards over the final three quarters. Meanwhile, the guys in green showed up, on both sides of the ball.

The Spartans began playing like the team that had its way with Iowa in Kinnick Stadium three weeks earlier. They balanced a sharp running game of its own with Kirk Cousins' passing to tear the Wisconsin defense asunder. MSU totaled 471 yards to Wisconsin's 345. That was just a statistic. This game transcended stats.

Examples: After a beautifully crafted fake pitch, Cousins threw a 30-yard TD pass to B.J. Cunningham on the first play of the second period. On MSU's next possession, Cousins tossed a short pass to old Badger nemesis Keith Nichol at the Wisconsin 7. Nichol immediately lateraled to Cunningham for another touchdown. It was schoolyard in concept, but major-league in execution.

That was razzle. Dazzle came on the subsequent conversion when MSU holder Brad Sonntag took the snap from center and ran it into the end zone for two points. Taking the lead instead of tying the game there seemed to give the Spartans a sideline-full of extra juice, and jarred the 9 1/2-point favorite Badgers.

Two possessions later, Michigan State drove 84 yards for yet another touchdown and a 29-21 lead. It all added up to enough fireworks in one half to sate offense-overdosed fans of the Big 12 or Pac-12, and surprised those who are used to seeing top teams play at least a little defense.

"We did what we wanted all day offensively," Cousins said.

Wisconsin was pushing a piano up a staircase for almost the whole second half, but relocated its championship tenor in the fourth quarter. First came a TD drive to cut its deficit to 36-34. Then came a red zone defensive stand to hold MSU to a field goal. Then, a 64-yard TD drive that featured Wilson making the play of his life. He scrambled out of serious danger and lofted a quail. The ball somehow found its way into the arms of Jeff Duckworth for 36 yards at the Spartan 7.

Ball ran it in to the end zone from there, and a 2-point conversion made the score 42-39. The beleaguered Badger defense was picked on for a third-down pass to Keyshawn Martin in which the fantastic receiver made a fantastic play. But a replay review said he didn't get his toe down in bounds before his foot touched the sideline, and MSU punted with 2:51 and two timeouts left.

Three-and-out for Wisconsin. Well, no. The charging Lewis grazed Badger punter Brad Nortman, the penalty gave UW a first-down, and the timeout-less Spartans could only watch the rest of the clock elapse.

"I thought (Nortman) flopped a bit," MSU Coach Mark Dantonio said. "If he hit him, he just nicked him."

It was a penalty. It was a shame, for all but the Badgers and their fans. It would have been so much fun to see the Spartans try to drive for a game-tying field goal. But you can't have everything.

"It was probably the two best games in college football (this and MSU's 37-31 win over Wisconsin at East Lansing in October)," Cousins said. "One went our way. One didn't."

This was a good time. Wild and woolly. And warm.

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