EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) -Dan LeFevour has accomplished quite a bit in his college football career, producing more total offense than any player in the history of the Mid-American Conference and leading his team to three straight bowl games and two conference championships.
So when it came time to decide whether to go for a 2-point conversion to try to win Saturday’s game at Michigan State, Central Michigan’s senior quarterback and captain didn’t hesitate.
“I want to go for two,” he told coach Butch Jones along the sideline during a timeout.
LeFevour’s pass to Antonio Brown went long with 32 seconds remaining, but an onside kick and a 42-yard field goal later and the Chippewas – two-touchdown underdogs at Spartan Stadium – were 29-27 winners over the Big Ten big boys an hour to the south.
le of doing in the first two weeks.”
Central Michigan (1-1) came into the season hoping its first two games – at Arizona and Michigan State – would allow it to prove it could hang with a pair of well-coached schools from BCS conferences.
But a lackluster 19-6 opening-week loss out West was an eye-opener for Central, which refocused and came away with a much better effort on Saturday.
“(The win) does a lot. Hopefully it does something for recruiting. But this is also our first victory of the year,” said LeFevour, who surpassed Byron Leftwich’s MAC total offense record of 12,084 yards on a 12-yard, fourth-quarter TD pass to Kito Poblah. “We got to do a lot more than win just one game to do something for our program. I think we got to keep going, keep winning, and we’ll see where this thing goes.”
For Michigan State, it goes to Notre Dame and Wisconsin.
The Spartans (1-1) would have liked to use its first two games of the year – at home against Montana State and Central – as tuneups for the pair of challenging road tests in Games 3 and 4, but it wasn’t to be.
“We have to get ready to focus on Notre Dame, and it doesn’t get any easier from here because then we have Wisconsin and then Michigan at home,” said Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio. “We have to get ready to play and put this behind us and move forward while learning from the mistakes we made.
bit about our chemistry, about our senior leadership and about our other leaders. This is not the time to panic so we are moving forward from here.”
Dantonio will be questioned about his quarterback rotation again this week.
Sophomores Kirk Cousins and Keith Nichol split time against Montana State and reps in practice, but Cousins started and took about three-quarters of the snaps against Central.
He finished 13 of 18 for 164 yards and a touchdown, while Nichol was 3 of 8 for 51 yards and a score.
Cousins played the first and third quarters and Nichol the second, but when the fourth rolled around and the game was on the line, Dantonio stuck with Cousins.
“It’s not the ideal situation to have to go back and forth, but I learned not to have expectations about playing time,” Cousins said. “You just have to take advantage of your opportunities.”
Nichol thought there was a chance he might see some action after halftime.
“I had a really good feeling I was going to start the second half just because the series was pretty even and we had scored a touchdown, things were rolling along and we were comfortable,” he said. “I really felt like I was going to go back in early on, but Central kept putting points on the board, and I think that’s just an uncomfortable time to just throw in a guy randomly.
“I wasn’t mad about it at all. I am disappointed about the result of the game, but not about the quarterback situation.”
The Spartans also kept up with their running back rotation.
A year ago, Javon Ringer was a one-man band in the backfield, but freshmen Caulton Ray and Larry Caper continued to share the load Saturday.
Ray carried 16 times for 51 yards and a touchdown – a 1-yard run that opened the scoring, and Caper gained 33 yards on six attempts.
“If you compare last game to this game, it looks like Caulton Ray carried it considerably more than he did last game,” Michigan State offensive coordinator Don Treadwell said. “That may be an ongoing thing, but it does look like we’re trying to find whoever may be our guy and go from there.”
Add A Comment