Roles Reversed For Instate Rivals
10/22/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Steve Grinczel, MSUSpartans.com Online Columnist | @GrinzOnGreen
EAST LANSING, Mich. - There has been as many approaches to confronting Michigan football from Michigan State as there have been Spartan coaches.
Often times, the game has been a be-all, end-all and it didn't matter what was MSU's final record was as long as it beat the Wolverines. On occasion, it has been greeted with feigned indifference, as if to tell U-M it was no more special to the Spartans than the University of Podunk.
From 1983-94, "they all count one" was the mantra of George Perles who wanted to make sure his players understood that a loss to the worst opponent on the schedule was just as damaging as a defeat to the best, and that a victory against Michigan was no more important in the standings than one over the Big Ten's last-place team.
What Perles never said was that U-M wasn't the most important game to MSU and clearly, the mist in his eyes after each of his four wins and the pain on his face following the eight losses said it was.
Beginning with his introductory press conference on Nov. 27, 2006, head coach Mark Dantonio has made it a point to call out Michigan as its biggest rival in every facet of its college football existence from the game to the everyday minutiae. How the Wolverines respond, he has said, is their business, but up went the countdown clocks and down went the recruiting battles to the very last phone call.
The strategy has worked so well Dantonio's teams, stocked with the players he inherited and those he sold on Michigan State in subsequent years have won five of seven against Michigan and it can be argued that he's two plays away from being 7-0 in the rivalry.
And now it's gotten to the point that the roles have been completely reversed. In the interim, the Spartans have: won two Big Ten Championships; played in two of the three conference championship games, winning one; and prevailed in the Rose Bowl.
Meantime, Michigan has been engaged in a prolonged rebuilding phase no one could have ever imagined.
However, while MSU goes into Saturday's 107th meeting with U-M from a position of strength not seen since the mid-1960s - the last time commanded serious National-Championship consideration - one thing hasn't changed.
The chip on the Spartans' shoulder, the one that has fueled five victories in the last six games, is just as big and they are doing everything they can to keep it that way, if not make it bigger.
"From my perspective, this is still the most important game on the schedule for me, personally and for our program," Dantonio said. "I think (that's natural) when you compete day in and day out with them, and that's what we do on recruits, for fans, for everything, you know. It carries over to basketball, it carries over to volleyball, it carries over to every sport here.
"That still is a game that we have to point to and say, `Hey, this goes beyond our schedule, this goes beyond the future. This is beyond what we're doing right now. It's just the way it is."
Many young fans, probably most, don't even understand how the respectful animosity came to be. How it's rooted in the way Michigan successfully lobbied for decades against Michigan State's proposed membership in the "Western Conference," as the Big Ten was officially known in the 1920s, and continued to play an obstructionist role in expansion of the "Big Nine" after the University of Chicago dropped football in '38.
It's as if the antagonism takes place by transfusion, some contemporary salt in the wound that keeps the rivalry at the boiling point: Legendary U-M head coach Bo Schembechler saying "The better team won" after an especially contentious 10-7 Wolverine victory in '89, Eddie Brown's coverage of Desmond Howard on No. 1-ranked Michigan's failed two-point conversion a year later, "Clockgate," "Little Brother" ... and on and it goes.
"Why is it so personal?" said Dantonio, who knew Michigan from the perspective of growing up in Ohio until he first arrived at MSU as an assistant coach in '95. "It gets in your blood. There are just things that happen over the course of time that just, you know, begin to set you on edge, I guess, one way or the other, either team.
"I'm never going to come here and say on the first day that I was the head coach at Michigan State, `Oh that game is just another game,' because that really wouldn't be truthful, I don't believe. If I were the next coach, I would assume the same."
While MSU appears to have the upper hand, with a 6-1 overall record, 3-0 Big Ten mark and No. 8 ranking, over 3-4 Michigan, it's not in their blood to behave like haughty overlords.
"Being at Michigan State, we're always known for being the underdog," said senior middle linebacker Taiwan Jones. "So we never overlook anybody or underlook anybody. We just continue to go out and play Michigan State football if we're going to be the underdog in each game."
Those winged helmets and maize-and-blue uniforms would ratchet up the intensity if the Spartans and Wolverines were meeting in a spelling bee.
"Yeah, you have all the coaches flying around," said junior quarterback Connor Cook. "(They) are moving fast and the players are moving faster. The scout team's energy is up a little bit. I'd say the main thing is everyone's energy is just up here as opposed to being down there.
"Everything's just moving faster. Everything's done with more intensity. There is more intensity in the meetings. Everyone is a little bit more on edge."
Losing to Michigan is never acceptable, and this year, it wouldn't even be understandable, given the relative status of the two programs, but, there's and additional motivation for every senior.
"It's kind of an eye-opener," said fifth-year senior defensive end Marcus Rush. "It is our last time playing Michigan, so we want to definitely go out with a bang. There would be nothing worse than losing to Michigan your senior year. So definitely I think the seniors are amped, especially for this game, and they're ready to go."
From a national standpoint, this game isn't near the monster matchup it would be if, say, Michigan were also 6-1 and ranked, say, seventh or ninth, but that doesn't matter in the 60-mile sphere linking Ingham and Washtenaw counties.
Dantonio said the Michigan-Michigan State game will always be about credibility - the Wolverines desperately need it; the Spartans are looking to further galvanize what they already have.
"I don't feel any lack of luster," he said. "Not for me, not for our players and I'm sure not for them. I think it's the same."
Said MSU senior guard Travis Jackson, "You really don't understand the Michigan rivalry until you're a part of it and you play in the game. When you come to a big-time college football program, these are the games you love to play in because it has so much history to it. It just has so much behind it that makes it so special.
"It's the epitome of college football."
