Last Saturday against Northwestern, Michigan State ran another fake involving punter Aaron Bates. Earlier in the year, Bates became well known for more than simply being MSU's punter when he threw the game-winning touchdown pass in overtime against Notre Dame on a fake field goal. The play became known as "Little Giants" and made the Notre Dame game an instant classic.
↵Against Northwestern, Michigan State was playing from behind and needed a game-changing play to pull off the comeback. That play turned out to be a fake punt called "Mouse Trap." Dantonio said in the post-game interview that it was called "Mouse Trap" because Northwestern took the cheese, which in this case was a delay of game penalty to sell the punt. Despite taking the penalty, MSU still ran a fake, and although Northwestern was actually in a punt safe formation, it still worked for the Spartans.
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