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Michigan State's Tony Lippett with a 25-yard scoring reception from Connor Cook in the fourth quarter to break a 17-17 tie.

PASADENA, Calif. — Sometimes, Michigan State quarterback Connor Cook looked like a Heisman Trophy candidate. Sometimes, he looked lost. Sometimes, he looked like a sophomore at the end of an uneven season, one that concluded at the Rose Bowl on Wednesday night.

Mostly, Cook turned a perceived weakness (Michigan State's passing offense) into the most unlikely of strengths. He threw short passes and intermediate passes, comebacks and slant routes and long fades. He surpassed 300 passing yards for the second time this season — and the second time in the past two games.

Cook made sure that No. 5 Stanford lost the 100th Rose Bowl the same way the Cardinal lost the first. After the parade and the pageantry and the overload of nostalgia, this game, like so many football games, came down to a quarterback. Cook made a few really ugly throws and a few really bad decisions, but he also led No. 4 Michigan State to a 24-20 triumph in front of an announced crowd of 95,173.

The Cardinal's sustained run of college football excellence should not be understated. This marked Stanford's fourth straight appearance in the Bowl Championship Series and second straight Rose Bowl trip. This one, despite Stanford getting the ball back late in the fourth quarter, ended in defeat, with an emphatic fourth-down stop by the mighty Michigan State defense.

The third quarter seemed centered on Cook, the quarterback who looked alternately great and awful and sometimes both on the same play.

Cook hooked up with Bennie Fowler, who danced away from a series of defenders and picked up 60 yards. Michael Geiger tied the score at 17-17 with a 31-yard field goal on that drive. Then Cook, throwing on the run right at a defender, threw into triple coverage for an interception that was overturned by a defensive penalty.

As Cook went, so went the Spartans, a theme that worked for this season as well as this game. Michigan State's lone stumble came at Notre Dame back in September, in a game where the Spartans managed only 13 points. The better Cook played, the less burden he left on the Spartans' formidable defense, which played Wednesday without its starting linebacker and captain, Max Bullough, and still managed a critical third-quarter fourth-down stop.

That gave the ball back to Cook, the early-season backup turned permanent starter turned signal caller who tossed three touchdowns against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game. He moved the Spartans down near the goal line, only for running back Jeremy Langford, he of eight straight 100-yard games, to fumble.

So it went, the 100th edition of the Rose Bowl knotted after three quarters.

Cook got the ball back early in the fourth quarter and found receiver Tony Lippett for a 25-yard touchdown and Michigan State's first lead, as the sun set both in the distance and on another solid Stanford season.

The first Rose Bowl took place in 1902, and Stanford participated, although "participated" is a loose term, given that Michigan trounced the Cardinal, 49-0.

Fans arrived at that contest on horses and buggies. Few stayed for the end. The game was so bad, in fact, that organizers did not hold another one until 1916.

The latest edition of the Rose Bowl hardly resembled the first, although it was also expected to lack for style points. Both teams earned reputations this season as defensive juggernauts. Michigan State (13-1) allowed teams 2.70 yards a carry, best in the nation; Stanford (11-3) allotted 2.98. Neither team struck fear into opposing offenses with their passing attacks.

So it figured, then, that an expected defensive slog turned into something of a shootout. Notice came on Stanford's second offensive play, when quarterback Kevin Hogan launched a deep ball that Michael Rector secured for a 43-yard gain.

Later that drive, Stanford running back Tyler Gaffney, who took last season off to play professional baseball and watched that Rose Bowl from inside the stadium but not in uniform, made contact with a defender, spun around as if propelled like a pinball and sprinted into the end zone for a 16-yard score.

The Cardinal followed that with a 34-yard field goal from Jordan Williamson to take a 10-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. Stanford had averaged more than 10 yards a rush and recovered a Hogan fumble.

Fortune swung back to the Spartans, though. Cook threw one pass right at a defender, only for the ball to slip through the defender's hands for a completion. Stanford also nearly came up with a goal-line stop that drive, but cornerback Wayne Lyons was whistled for pass interference on a pass Inspector Gadget would have had trouble grabbing, and Michigan State running back Jeremy Langford bounded into the end zone for a touchdown.

Both teams scored again before the half, and Cook was involved each time. The first came when Stanford linebacker Kevin Anderson intercepted one of Cook's throws and raced untouched 40 yards into the end zone. The other came when Cook led the Spartans back down field, completing passes of 24, 11 and 37 yards, before evading pressure and finding fullback Trevon Pendleton for a 2-yard touchdown.

Stanford led, 17-14, at the break. The outbreak of scoring ended there, and in the second half it sometimes felt as if the Cardinal took that double-digit lead last week.

But Michigan State gave Cook the ball and let him throw, and the Spartans left the game, if not perfect or even pretty, victorious.