Michigan State vs. Iowa for Big Ten Title Should Be a Playoff Play-in Game

Michigan State took care of business against Penn State, beating the Nittany Lions 55-16 and setting up what should be—and probably will be—a College Football Playoff quarterfinal against Iowa in the Big Ten Championship Game.

The Spartans scored eight touchdowns (six offensive, two defensive) against a team that held its previous opponents to 18.6 points per game. The key was a strong performance from quarterback Connor Cook, who missed last week's win at Ohio State but played through an injured shoulder on Saturday and balled out in his final career home game.

The same goes for wide receiver Aaron Burbridge:

And, of course, for center-turned-running back Jack Allen:

The blowout win made Sparty look impressive before the penultimate release of the CFP rankings next Tuesday.

The same can be said of Ohio State's rout at Michigan, which took place three hours earlier. One week after gaining only 132 yards against Sparty, the Buckeyes gained 482 yards and won by 29 points in the Big House.

A road win over the 10-0 national champions already looked good on MSU's resume. What Ohio State did at Michigan made it look better.

Nati Harnik/Associated Press

Iowa, meanwhile, held on to beat Nebraska on Friday, advancing to 12-0 on the season. Its resume lacks quality wins, but there's no way it misses the playoff at 13-0. If the Hawkeyes beat Michigan State, they are going to the playoff. There's no two ways about it.

Sparty's case is slightly more contentious. It lost to the 5-7 Huskers that Iowa just beat. Despite quality wins over Ohio State (with Cook on the sideline), Oregon and Michigan, that one loss shines a negative light on its playoff resume.

That's why Week 13 was so important. The way MSU beat Penn State and Ohio State beat Michigan leaves no doubt about Sparty's quality. Adding a neutral-field win over Iowa would suppress those doubts even further, which is important with Notre Dame, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State all lurking as potential one-loss teams.

Chris Vannini of CoachingSearch.com put it succinctly:

It's hard to overstate how well the offense played Saturday, especially with Cook missing most of the week of practice. Head coach Mark Dantonio said Cook only practiced Thursday, but he completed 19 of 26 passes for 248 yards and three scores.

"[It was] like night and day," Cook said of his arm strength last week compared to this week, per Matt Charboneau of the Detroit News.

His accuracy looked pretty good too:

The defense still has holes, which was evident in the first half Saturday, but it made a couple big plays and bent without breaking. Even with those struggles, it is peaking, for the most part, in November.

Also of note: Starting safety RJ Williamson, who hasn't played since tearing his biceps against Purdue in the Big Ten opener, was dressed and on the sideline for senior day. He has inched toward returning the past two weeks and might take the field against Iowa.

His return would spark a domino effect in the secondary, potentially moving Demetrious Cox back to cornerback, where his coverage is badly needed and his tackling issues—a problem in the first half against Penn State—can be hidden.

MSU's season has been hard, at times, to make sense of. The secondary has been beaten up and porous. The linebackers have struggled to tackle. The team has underwhelmed against Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Air Force, Purdue, Rutgers, Indiana, et al.

But in a season with increasingly few "sure things," there are few safer bets than Michigan State and Iowa coming out and playing competent football. Both teams have done so on a weekly basis all year.

Whoever wins next weekend deserves a playoff berth.

It makes no difference what happens in other conferences.

Brian Leigh covers college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter at @BLeigh35