Rose Bowl Victory Finishes Off Historic Career For Spartan Senior Class
With the Michigan State Spartans’s victory over Stanford in the 100th Rose Bowl, the 2013 senior class will finish their career as the winningest class in school history.
The Spartans have won 42 games over their four years in East Lansing, finished tied for a Big Ten Conference title in 2010, reached the Big Ten Conference Championship game in 2011, and won both the Big Ten Conference Championship and the Rose Bowl this season.
Those 42 Spartan victories are just two less than the Spartans had in the six years before the 2013 classes’ arrival on campus.
Michigan State’s football program had struggled since Nick Saban had left the school following a successful 1999 season that saw the Spartans finish 7th in the country and beat Florida in the Citrus Bowl.
The Spartans went 38-45 over the next seven years before Mark Dantonio arrived prior the 2007 campaign. Dantonio changed the culture in East Lansing and found early success with his football team. He led the team to bowl games in each of his first three seasons with the squad.
The 2013 senior class arrived in 2010 and helped bring the program to new heights. After that 2010 season that saw the Spartans reel off 11 victories and a Capitol One Bowl birth, the Spartans won three consecutive bowl games, capped off by the Big Ten Conference and Rose Bowl Championships this year.
During their time on campus, the 2013 senior class has helped the Spartans return to the national stage. The Spartans have won three consecutive bowls for the first time in school history and helped to get the Spartans back to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1988, setting a high bar for classes to come.
