2015 Cotton Bowl results: Michigan State pulls off 20-point comeback win

Michigan State’s defense is specifically designed to overwhelm college offenses. They’ve finished in Football Outsiders’ top 10 defenses four years in a row, regularly obliterating the Big Ten schools on their schedule.

The press-quarters design -- constant press coverage, aggressive blitzing and big safeties close to the line -- is brilliant. It takes away everything easy, daring teams to throw deep. The press-quarters defense pushed QBs to relieve the pressure by heaving fades that had little chance of doing damage.

Dang. The Internet is a bad place full of thirsty people. On Thursday, the Internet discovered Shawn Oakman, a 6-foot-9, 280-pound Baylor DE who looks like a created player from Breaking Madden.

He was an instant hit.

College football’s showcase day, now headlined by two College Football Playoff games, lived up to any and all expectations. Let’s look at the key numbers from January 1’s five bowls.

And by allowing just three points in Minnesota’s final five possessions following Williams’ touchdown, they sent defensive coordinator Dave Steckel, recently named Missouri State’s head coach, out a winner.

Michigan State basketball players got to watch the Cotton Bowl -- and that crazy Sparty comeback win-- together, which made for some great moments:

My mom told me I shouldn’t stand that close to the TV, though. It’ll turn your brain to mush.

Hey, here’s a photo of Bryce Petty speaking to reporters after Baylor’s crushing Cotton Bowl loss to Michigan State. Just a normal photo ...

... wait a second ...

Michigan State pulled off one of the biggest comebacks of the college football season, using a furious fourth quarter and a huge blocked kick to beat Baylor 42-41 in the Cotton Bowl on Thursday. The only other team to come back from a 20-point fourth quarter deficit this year was Baylor, against TCU, according to ESPN.

Michigan State answered back with another short rushing touchdown, while the Bears tied it up again on a trick play. Baylor took their first lead of the game in the second quarter when multiple Spartan penalties led to a short touchdown dive from Petty. A field goal before halftime made it 24-14 Bears.

GADZOOKS.

MY HEAVENS.

Baylor junior offensive guard LaQuan McGowan is a big, big man. At 6’7 and 390 pounds, he’s one of the nation’s biggest players regardless of position, and Thursday he caught an 18-yard touchdown pass to expand Baylor’s Cotton Bowl lead over Michigan State to 41-21.

via ESPN

Thursday’s matchup between Baylor and Michigan State brings two of the best units in the country head-to-head. Baylor’s deep and talented wide receiving corps is going up against Michigan State’s great secondary, and the early results are pointing towards the Bears.

After Baylor’s first touchdown saw Bryce Petty throw 49 yards to true freshman KD Cannon (over all-conference corner Kurtis Drummond), the Bears struck again on this trick play.

Michigan State chaplain Fr. Joseph Krupp believes in eating the competition before the Cotton Bowl -- literally. Do you think someone at the school was tasked with buying Texas-shaped waffle makers solely for this purpose? Or was this a gift?

There’s nothing wrong with Texas, but all those odd-shaped pockets are really going to mess up your waffle/syrup ratio.

Happy New Year!

RavenousUte [1:24 AM]:

The inaugural College Football Playoff is here, with both semifinal matchups kicking off Thursday. There are three other exciting bowl games taking place first, however, with all five of the day’s games available to watch on TV and streamed on WatchESPN. Full schedule below.

The day starts off with three matchups featuring Big Ten schools, beginning with Auburn-Wisconsin in the Outback Bowl. The game will feature two very different approaches to run-based offenses, while the Badgers will be playing without head coach Gary Andersen (now with Oregon State) or offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig (Vanderbilt).

We asked for New Year’s Day to be awesome again, and it appears we are getting what we wished for: five games, all with ranked teams, three fun table-setters, and the first two national semifinal games in FBS history. So grab your hangover cure of choice, and let’s look at the most important questions for each of January 1’s five bowls.

January 1 kicks off with a battle between run-heavy teams with defenses that weren’t as bad as they showed at the end of the year.

For Michigan State, the focus is on defense. The Spartans have had yet another huge year on that side of the ball, but they will go on without defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, who finally left East Lansing to take the Pitt job. Bowl games already feature a lot of strange performances due to the long layoff, but we’ll see how the Spartans respond.

Game time: 12:30 p.m. ET

The Michigan State Spartans are 6-4 straight up and 8-1-1 against the spread in their last 10 games as the betting underdog. The Spartans will be looking for another outright upset against Baylor in the Cotton Bowl Classic on Thursday at 12:30 p.m. ET (ESPN) at AT&T Stadium.

Michigan State is a 2.5-point underdog in the Cotton Bowl according to sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. How motivated Baylor will be coming into this game is up for debate, but the Bears are too strong on offense to pass on as 2.5-point favorites in a matchup that the computer thinks will be even closer.

Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi will reportedly become the new head coach at Pitt, according to Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel. He replaces Paul Chryst, who left the Panthers after three years to take the Wisconsin job. Since the deal has yet to be finalized, no announcement is expected until after Christmas.

Narduzzi has been a hot candidate for several years now, but is only now leaving East Lansing. He’s been the architect of some of the nation’s best defenses at Michigan State. He first became a defensive coordinator in 2003 at Miami (Ohio), but he left for the same job at Cincinnati only one year later, where he began working under Mark Dantonio. When Dantonio left Cincinnati for Michigan State in 2007, Narduzzi made the trip north with him.

After the Playoff selection committee passed over No. 5 Baylor for blue blood Ohio State, there were certainly worse potential outcomes for the Bears than to draw No. 8 Michigan State in Arlington on New Year’s Day.

Despite Baylor winning the Big 12 two years in a row, an achievement that was once so unthinkable as to be a joke, Bears fans have been disappointed with conclusions. Last year, they were shunted into an unwanted BCS match-up with the mid-major UCF Knights, who then soundly trashed them. This year they miss the Playoff, but they have a golden opportunity to win major credibility.

Bowl season can make for some pretty crazy travel plans for college football teams. Geography isn’t always a major factor in bowl decisions, but the new College Football Playoff selection committee took locality into account when creating parts of the six biggest bowls, the New Year’s Six (the two Playoff games and four other major games).

Here’s a look at which NY6 teams made out the best, which ones had the most brutal travel plans, and which fans will just get to take a short bus trip.

Baylor offensive coordinator Philip Montgomery is expected to be hired as the new head coach of Tulsa, FootballScoop is reporting. Tulsa World’s John Hoover reports Tulsa is “zeroing in on” Montgomery and currently negotiating with the coach.

Montgomery began his coaching career at his alma mater, Tarleton State, in 1996, serving as a grad assistant for two seasons. In 1997, he moved on to Stephenville (Texas) High School, where he as an assistant on then-head coach Art Briles’ staff for six seasons. In 2002, he moved on to Denton (Texas) High, where he was offensive coordinator for one season.

We at SB Nation love bowls for one simple reason: they’re college football games. If there were fewer bowl games, there would be fewer college football games before the eight-month offseason void. We welcome bowls of all shapes, sizes, locales, and levels of importance. You don’t have to watch Utah State vs. UTEP, but we damn sure will.

Still, there are watchable bowls, and there are less watchable bowls. I’m here to help you differentiate.

The Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic always seems to be one of the better bowl games each season, and it was a surprise to few people when it was included in the new College Football Playoff. While the Cotton Bowl won’t host one of the national semifinals in the playoff’s debut season, we should be in for a terrific game once again at AT&T Stadium.

This year’s Cotton Bowl will pit two at-large teams, as it’s one of the three major New Year’s Day bowls that no longer has conference ties. It’s a bit of a change from the Big 12-SEC matchup the bowl has had for a few years now, but we’re living in a changing college football world.