Michigan State Football: Top 30 games in school history
13. MSU vs. Florida (2000)
In what turned out to be the first game of the Bobby Williams tenure — which was also a very short-lived span — the Michigan State Spartans had their best season since the 1987 Rose Bowl year, going 9-2 until Nick Saban left prior to the team’s Citrus Bowl trip to Orlando, Fla., on Jan. 1, 2000.
Williams got his new team ready for a big game against the Florida Gators who were basically playing a home game down the road in Orlando.
The Spartans came out with a full head of steam, playing angry and fighting a back-and-forth battle with the Gators. Florida took a 21-20 lead into halftime and it looked as if the second half would see much of the same lead change-wise, and it did.
Michigan State scored first on a 21-yard pass from Bill Burke to go ahead 26-21, but the two-point conversion try was no good, allowing the Gators to go ahead by one point on the next score, 27-26.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Gators scored again and the game was hanging in the balance, but another Plaxico Burress touchdown made it a one-point Spartan deficit until Gari Scott caught the two-point conversion pass from Burke.
With the game tied and the ball in the Spartans possession with time melting off the clock, Paul Edinger stepped up to kick the biggest field goal of his career, drilling a 39-yard field goal with no time left.
The Bobby Williams Era got off to a great start, but quickly fizzled away.
Next: 12. MSU vs. Ohio State (1998)