Anatomy of a miracle: MSU leaves Michigan in shock with last-second heroics

ANN ARBOR. Mich. – Not an hour after improbable, an hour after everything, they were already filming television standups in the northwest corner of Michigan Stadium, in that now famous corner of the end zone of this forever-famous football cathedral where Jalen Watts-Jackson became an all-time Michigan State legend and then promptly dislocated his hip.

It finished Michigan State 27, Michigan 23 and the hero of the game, a redshirt freshman out of Dearborn, got to celebrate in the hospital, which is somehow oddly fitting considering the afternoon of violence that he ended. It was maybe because he was tackled as he crossed the goal line with the winning score or maybe because of ensuing dog pile out of the Spartans' wildest imagination.

So yes, the news crews were going to stand there at ground zero and try to make sense of it all, stand there and memorialize a patch of turf that will be pointed to and recalled forever and ever around these parts, either with disgust or delirium depending on whom is doing the recalling.

This was a bitter and brutal afternoon of football befitting a restored rivalry, befitting Jim Harbaugh's return, befitting Mark Dantonio's resolve, befitting in-state and in-your-face, where one game meant so much more to so many on both sides.

"Intense," Dantonio would say. "Intense."

The game wasn't over when Watts-Jackson went running out on the field as part of the punt coverage unit, but you could see it from here. Michigan led by two. There were just 10 seconds remaining. It was fourth down so the Wolverines would have to punt, but the win probability was nearly 100 percent.