True Grit: Quarterback Cousins Battles Injury, Leads Michigan State To Win

John Raffel – AHN Sports Correspondent

East Lansing, MI, United States (AHN) – Kirk Cousins is as determined as any Michigan State football player to go to the Rose Bowl or any other major BCS bowl in January.

That was rather evident Saturday with a gritty performance by the Michigan State quarterback in leading his team from a 15-point deficit in the fourth quarter to defeat Purdue 35-31 at Spartan Stadium.

By surviving a major scare from the Boilermakers, the Spartans improved to 10-1 overall and 6-1 in the Big Ten to stay tied for first place. The end to the regular season comes Saturday at Penn State.

It was a game Cousins almost didn’t finish. He even sat out some offensive plays to heal his injuries.

“I’ve been battling a sprained ankle and sprained shoulder three or four weeks now and they just don’t heal when you keep playing on them,” he said. “I’ve been battling and getting a lot of treatment on it but they are very tender so when you get driven into the ground or twisted in the pile it’s not going to react too well.

“Sprains are something that you can keep playing as long as you can handle the pain but it slows you down. There was a point in time I was close to pulling myself out of the game and not trying to be the hero because it’s about the team and not me.,” Cousins said.

“But I have to give credit to our training staff who I talked with at halftime and they encouraged me to stay in there and I think that helped us get the win.”

Cousins was 28-of-37 for 276 yards and three touchdowns to lead MSU to the comeback victory.

“He is resilient and a competitor, he has toughness and is the leader of our football team,” Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said. “When your leader does things, people follow. Leadership sometimes is thrust upon people, and it was certainly thrust upon him in the fourth quarter. He needed to get it done, down 15 (points); we needed to make plays somehow and someway. If you watch our sidelines it got electric there in the fourth quarter.”

“There is definitely a footwork problem because of my sprained ankle,” Cousins said. “I can’t plant my leg and pivot off it without excruciating pain so I have to play with flat feet. It makes it very tough to play a Big Ten team on basically one ankle, but when you have receivers like Mark Dell who can get separation and make difficult catches in traffic, it helps a lot.”

“It was halftime when we had to make the decision (to keep playing) because at that point the shoulder and ankle had been aggravated. We just made the decision and went for it, and after the first series I felt I could do it.,” Cousins added.

“Obviously I wasn’t at full strength but I was able to do it enough, but when you have players like this around you like Mark Dell, who is one of the best receivers in the Big Ten, and you have a blocked punt and interceptions, which we’ve had in all of our close games, it makes a bad ankle and shoulder easy to deal with because you have guys helping you out. “

When MSU, trailing 31-28, blocked a Purdue punt late in the game and recovered at the Boilermaker 3-yard line, Cousins ran it in for the winning points. It was also his first career rushing touchdown.

“You just react when you’re playing football and being an athlete,” Cousins said. “You see the seam and nothing is open so I went for it.”

“I never doubted that Kirk would get back up and keep playing, that is just how he carries himself and I have a lot of respect for that,” said MSU senior linebacker Greg Jones. “He just got up, went to the sidelines for a minute and did whatever he had to do to get back in the game.”

“He came back, at the end of the first half I believe, sort of regrouped and was OK. I thought (Andrew) Maxwell did a nice job when he was in there,” Dantonio said. “Andrew is going to be a very good quarterback for us.”

“All I have to say is that Kirk is a very tough guy,” said MSU senior linebacker Eric Gordon. “He got knocked out a couple times today but just kept coming back. I really thought Andrew Maxwell was going to be playing for the rest of the game, but that didn’t happen. I don’t know exactly what happened to Kirk, but he has toughness and it was good to see him earn a rushing touchdown.”

Cousins enjoyed his seventh 200-yard passing game of the season. His three TD passes equal his career high. He passed to 10 different receivers.

Cousins had a dark moment in the first half when Ricardo Allen returned an interception 35 yards and a touchdown to give Purdue a 14-7 lead.

“We scored a touchdown on the first drive of the game so I don’t think we were flat, but suddenly it’s 7-7 and then I throw an interception that gets returned for a touchdown,” Cousins said.

“It doesn’t mean we were flat I just made a bad decision and got hit and tried to fire it in there. Next thing you know it’s 14-7 on two plays that were mistakes. When you don’t execute in football it makes things tough but we were able to execute later on in the fourth quarter.”

While Cousins used 10 different receivers he found Dell eight times for 108 yards and two touchdowns.

“Mark is a special person and a special player, he is a special talent who came here as a big-time recruit and I think people were wondering when that was going to show and we just felt so good about him if he could stay healthy this year,” Cousins said.

“He’s a tremendous football player who loves the game of football and is passionate and never gives up. We worked so hard this off-season in the indoor and outdoor facilities and driving to the Detroit area to work together just to build our chemistry.”

“Kirk is just a phenomenal player and you can see the drive and toughness he came out with,” Dell said. “With a banged up ankle he showed how much toughness he has and showed he is a leader for this team and helped us with the win.”

Cousins is now focusing on Penn State.

“We are playing for a championship next Saturday and Penn State is going to be ready to go and they have a great football team and it’s going to be a challenge playing against them,” Cousins said. ” But we are playing for a championship, which is something special, and 10 wins is also special. We’ve talked a lot about leaving a legacy here in our time and we want to leave something that people will remember, and we have a chance to do that next weekend.”

By the way, bad ankle or not, Cousins plans on playing at Penn State.

“I think with a week to heal and with our trainers we will get a plan together and be ready to go,” he said. “With only one week left there’s not really a reason to baby it because we have a month off after that so we are going to give it all we got because that’s it and we have a lot to play for.”

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