text: Michigan State needs a win Saturday at Iowa to enter the Bowl Championship Series title game picture.To reach the title game, the Spartans, fifth in the BCS rankings, need the following: They must finish unbeaten and need Auburn, No. 1 in the BCS rankings, or BCS No. 2 Oregon to lose.Finally, MSU would have to vault ahead of No. 3 Boise State and No. 4 TCU in the BCS rankings, a likely scenario. Neither Boise State nor TCU is a member of one of the six major conferences that receive automatic bids; no team outside those leagues has finished higher than fourth in the final standings since the BCS' inception in 1998.All season, MSU has talked about winning the Big Ten and earning a Rose Bowl berth. Asked whether the national title game has crossed the Spartans' minds, safety Marcus Hyde said, "Yes sir. But you have to stay in the moment."After Iowa, MSU closes the season with home games vs. Minnesota (1-7) and Purdue (4-3) and a visit to Penn State (4-3). MSU doesn't play perennial power Ohio State.By Marlen Garcia
  
  By Marlen Garcia, USA TODAY
  
  State football fan, propped his 3½-year-old son, Colm, on his shoulders and quickly handed him a disposable camera.
  
  Perched above a crowd of fans eager to high-five Spartans football players, the little boy happily snapped shots as players triumphantly entered the visitors locker room after beating Northwestern 35-27 in Evanston, Ill., on Saturday to stay undefeated.
  
  "I hope it never stops," said Madden, who is a faculty library assistant at Michigan State. "I've seen so many bad seasons."
  
  This could become the most memorable one in decades for the fifth-ranked Spartans, though that hinges heavily on beating No. 19 Iowa on Saturday in Iowa City. Michigan State is 8-0 (4-0 in the Big Ten) for the first time since 1966.
  
  "It will have an impact on us for the rest of the season, good or bad," senior linebacker Greg Jones said Tuesday.
  
  A win at Iowa (5-2, 2-1) would escalate talk about Michigan State entering the Bowl Championship Series title game picture.
  
  "We've got an edge to us," Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said. Such swagger was hard for outsiders to fathom in the preseason when the Spartans did not receive a vote in the top 25 polls.
  
  Michigan State finished 6-7 last season, and Dantonio dismissed or suspended 15 players in the aftermath of a November fight in which some players were involved and others lied to Dantonio about being there. The bond between remaining players tightened.
  
  "Adversity brings people together," said Dantonio, 54. "I didn't know how many games we'd win, but I knew we had a special group."
  
  More hardship hit the Spartans this season. Dantonio had a mild heart attack Sept. 19, hours after an exhilarating overtime win against Notre Dame. Later he was hospitalized for a blood clot.
  
  Dantonio's health didn't seem to be in question against Northwestern as he joined his team on the field after coaching from the press box in two previous games. He joked Tuesday about not wanting to get hit on the sideline and emphasized he wants a sense of normalcy for the team. Nevertheless, he is cautious.
  
  "We made the decision five minutes before we went out (on the field) based on how I felt," he said. "I felt like I could. But I felt like, 'Should I?' I wanted everybody, my wife in particular, to feel OK with it."
  
  Dantonio declined to answer more questions about his health during the Big Ten teleconference, and his wife of 20 years, Becky, declined an interview request after the Northwestern game.
  
  "He would just rather have people not be talking about him as much, but that's sort of his nature," junior quarterback Kirk Cousins said. "At the same time it was a very serious issue, one that has a great effect on the program and the way things are operating. He's done a great job of making sure when he was gone that things were still run very smoothly."
  
  Dantonio came back with a slightly altered approach. "He's a bit more laid-back in the pregame," Jones said. "He smiles a little more. He doesn't seem as tense. I feel that helps the team; we don't feel as tense. When the game has started, he's fully engaged and ready to go."
  
  Offensive coordinator Don Treadwell was in charge during Dantonio's recovery, but many players tried to make it easy for him. "It caused players to step into a greater leadership role," Cousins said.
  
  As far back as he can remember, Cousins has received lessons in making good decisions. That comes with being the child of a pastor, or "PK," short for pastor's kid as classmates called him. Cousins' father, Don, now has a ministry consulting firm.
  
  There is a lesson, passed on when he was 5, that sticks with Cousins.
  
  "My dad said, 'Kirk, when you make good decisions, good things happen. When you make bad ones, bad things happen.' If I did something wrong, he'd say, 'Was that a good decision?' I'd say, 'Well, no.' And something bad would happen, like a timeout or I'd get sent to my room."
  
  Cousins believes taking such lessons to heart helped put him on course to be a winning quarterback at Holland (Mich.) Christian High School. He shined as a leader, but as a senior he was only 5-11 and lean, said his high school coach, Tim Lont.
  
  "Kirk developed late. He wasn't heavily recruited. He didn't have standout stats to say, 'Everybody wants this guy.' "
  
  He was impressive enough to get offers from mid-major schools. Michigan State wanted him for depth, not to be first string, Lont said.
  
  Said Cousins, "I didn't know if I'd play a down for Michigan State."
  
  Cousins sat out his first season as a redshirt and played five games in 2008. Last season he moved up to No. 1 on the depth chart in a tight race with Keith Nichol, now part of a deep receiving corps.
  
  Cousins, 6-3 and 202 pounds, has passed for 1,948 yards and 14 touchdowns with four interceptions. Prime targets B.J. Cunningham and Mark Dell combined have caught 64 passes for nearly 1,000 yards.
  
  The running game is formidable behind Edwin Baker and Le'Veon Bell with 779 and 574 yards, respectively. On defense, Jones seems on his way to repeating as an All-American, leading the team with 69 tackles.
  
  Among these standouts, punter Aaron Bates holds his own. Against Northwestern, he helped Michigan State rally with a fake punt on fourth-and-11. He hit Bennie Fowler with a 21-yard pass, and Cousins threw a TD pass to Dell on the next play.
  
  In the overtime win against Notre Dame in East Lansing, Bates engineered a play called "Little Giants." Dan Conroy lined up to attempt a 46-yard field goal, but Bates, acting as holder, took the snap and connected with Charlie Gantt for the win.
  
  "I tell him if he's giving quarterback lessons," Cousins quipped, "I'd love to attend."
  
  Lighthearted digs come naturally and frequently when a team is rolling.
  
  "We've had fun," Dantonio said. "We're trying ... to not put pressure on ourselves. Our guys need to play loose, and they need to expect to win, and they need to play confident. That's half of it, maybe more."
  
  Under Dantonio, Michigan State is 30-17 in four seasons. Since 2000, the Spartans have had winning records in the Big Ten twice, in 2003 and 2008.
  
  In the past it seemed Michigan State "would have a big win and then self-destruct," said Glen Mason, a Big Ten Network analyst who coached at Kansas in the 1990s and had Dantonio on his staff. "There were some who thought that was going to happen (this season), and here they are."
  
  Between football and basketball, the Spartans have in recent years dominated rival Michigan, major-college football's winningest program. They beat Michigan 34-17 on Oct. 9.
  
  Typically this time of year, fans gear up for men's basketball. Under coach Tom Izzo, the Spartans have made six Final Fours in 12 years, including the last two, and won the 2000 title.
  
  Now the football team has students and alumni frenzied about the possibilities. Apparel and merchandise sales at the school's online store have skyrocketed. October online sales are up 234% with a gross revenue of $195,905 compared with October 2009, according to athletics department spokesman John Lewandowski. Since July 1, 2010, online store sales are up 157% over the same period in 2009, he said.
  
  The team's feel-good appeal hit a snag when senior cornerback Chris L. Rucker, the most experienced member of the secondary, was arrested the morning after the Michigan game and charged with driving while intoxicated. He pleaded down to misdemeanor reckless driving and has served a 10-day jail sentence scheduled to end today. Rucker had been on probation relating to the fight in November. He is suspended indefinitely.
  
  Otherwise, the Spartans are enjoying a season similar to the one Iowa had last year. The Hawkeyes were undefeated until their 10th game. Iowa beat MSU 15-13 when Ricky Stanzi threw a TD pass as time expired.
  
  "Last year, we were coming out of games saying, 'I can't believe how we lost,' " Cousins said. "Now, it's a reversal of fortune."
  
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summary: Ryan Madden, a die-hard Michigan State football fan, propped his 3 1/2-year-old son, Colm, on his shoulders and quickly handed him a disposable camera.