Michigan v. Michigan State Football: The Greatest Games

Michigan and Michigan State will meet on Saturday for the 109th time. Today, we’re going to look back at the long history between these two.

Michigan and Michigan State really don’t like each other. With few exceptions, the state of Michigan is pretty firmly divided between blue and green, especially leading up to their annual football game. The game is as inherent to the fabric of the state of Michigan as pointing out your hometown on your hand.

In some ways, like most great rivalries, the game represents a cultural rift as much as anything else. Perhaps the only thing these two fanbases have in common is their common dislike for Notre Dame, although their styles of play have been historically similar, dependent on running the ball and playing strong defense. For a long time, the game was a clash of blue-collar and white-collar as much as it was blue-jersey and green-jersey. Michigan State supporters are seen as gritty and scrappy, Michigan fans are more upper-crust. Spartans tend to be more conservative while Wolverines are more progressive. You’re far more likely to find a Taco Bell in East Lansing than you are a Trader Joe’s.

Michigan Wolverines

The University of Michigan was founded in Detroit in 1817 as something called the “Catholepistemiad” and each of its thirteen schools, mostly science and classical studies, were christened with a pretentious-sounding Greco-Latin name. The school basically vanished from existence for a time but was resurrected after Michigan became a state in 1837 and was relocated to Ann Arbor after the city’s failed bid to become Michigan’s capitol city.

Michigan State was founded as the very not-classically-monikered Michigan Agricultural College in 1855. It was the country’s first land-grant college, a fact which is significant mostly due to its appropriation as the namesake of the somewhat weird trophy game the Spartans play against Penn State each year. Classes began in East Lansing in 1857, which at the time was not East Lansing, but rather the little swamp next to the big swamp that was Michigan’s capitol city.

Michigan’s football program is one of college football’s flagship programs, with more wins and a higher winning percentage than any other FBS program, and was ranked #7 all-time by the AP in their all-time Top 25 poll earlier this year.

Four of Michigan’s championships were claimed from 1901-1904, when Fielding Yost was their coach and punting before fourth down was a legitimate strategy. Those teams were known as the “point-a-minute” teams, probably because “they score a point every minute” didn’t translate well into Latin. The Wolverines went 40-0-1 during those four seasons, playing such venerable competition as Albion, Beloit, College of Physicians and Surgeons Chicago and oh, hey there, Michigan Agricultural College! However, their captain in 1902 was a man named Boss, so that’s worth something.  The Wolverines also claim 11 national championships, although only one (1997) of those has come since 1948, and although they played on a national level for the vast majority of the second half of the twentieth century, they have been much less competitive since the dawn of the twenty-first.

Michigan State Spartans

Michigan State has been far less consistent historically, claiming six national championships, some of which are quite sad, although they were ranked #19 overall all-time by the AP. After winning at least one national championship in the fifties and being a part of the national championship conversation for the better part of two decades, the Spartans were mired in mediocrity until recently, winning major bowl games in 2013 and 2014 and qualifying for the College Football Playoff in 2015.

The two teams met for the first time in 1898, Michigan winning 36-0. Four years later, in their second meeting, the Wolverines won 119-0 in what The Michigan Alumnus called “the greatest fusillade of touchdowns ever, except the one of a year ago with Buffalo (which Michigan had won 128-0).” By 1908, however, the Aggies had improved enough to tie the Wolverines, 0-0, in what the Detroit Free Press called, “the greatest game of football ever seen in this part of the state,” reporting that “the 6,000 spectators went wild with delight.”

1913, MAC beat Michigan for the first time, 12-7, but Michigan dominated the series for the next several decades, the newly-rechristened Spartans winning a few games in the thirties and several in the fifties after they had joined Michigan in the Big Ten and rose to national prominence for the first time. The Wolverines lead the overall series 69-36-3. Since 1953, the teams have played for the Paul Bunyan Trophy, although the Wolverines weren’t really interested at first. Since the trophy was introduced, the series has been more competitive, Michigan leading 35-26-2, and Michigan State has won seven of the last eight meetings, all under Mark Dantonio.

As the 1900s began to close, the games between the two rivals became more and more contested. In spite of the fact that rarely were the two two teams competing for a national championship in the same year, the games between them have disproportionally reached “classic” status. My mom used to tell me when I was little that the Michigan-Michigan State would always be worth watching, no matter how bad the Spartans were that year (which was sometimes pretty bad) because “Michigan State always plays their best against Michigan,” and she was right.

So, what follows is a list of the best games between Michigan and Michigan State, as well as the stories, controversies, figures and moments that have defined this rivalry as it has heated up in the past few decades. The games are in chronological order and they have highlights. As far as any controversies are concerned, I try not to voice an opinion, although there will be commentary from people who were there and were involved in those games.