Spartans

I thought the Sparty sign flashed during the game was fairly creative.

I can just imagine The Only Colors going non-linear over this Lynn Henning column.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100614/OPINION03/6140383/It-s-too-late-...

I know we hate Spartan threads, but it is breaking news.
Spartan players charged with assault...

EDITED: So you can choose to bypass the freep.com link and use the detnews.com one instead. However, I like it because it provides more proof that they are idiots when you take into account their most recent article regarding the players' parents.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20091209/SPORTS0202/912090427/Nine-MSU-fo...

http://freep.com/article/20091209/SPORTS07/91209048/1398/9-MSU-players-c...

Recently I've been wondering how any other in-state rivalries compare to the Wolverines & Spartans. In the (state of) Michigan case, we have one school that has historically dominated another school on and off the field (if not the court, ha). How might that be quantified? Well, these two resources were helpful:

http://football.stassen.com/records/opponent.html
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2009/03/03/athlet...

Michigan has a 68.8% winning percentage against MSU and is a whopping 45 spots ahead of it in the U.S. News and World Report ranking (for what it's worth). Domination, correct?

What other in-state rivalries compare? Sticking to apples-and-apples comparisons, there aren't many. This will be restricted to BCS-level public schools. So, I won't be comparing USC and UCLA or OSU and Kent State.

Here are the rivalries where the dominant football school (one that has won at least 60% of the games) is at least forty spaces ahead in the academic ranking. The number shown is the difference between rankings.

**: Texas and Texas Tech (which is a "Tier 3" school, meaning it's ranked somewhere beyond 130, which means that the difference is at least 83, since UT is #47)
75: Washington and Washington State
53: North Carolina and NC State
53: Florida and Florida State
47: Clemson and South Carolina
45: UM and MSU
41: Kansas and Kansas State

Here's how the ranking looks for football (with winning percentage):

74.1%: Texas and Texas Tech
68.8%: UM and MSU
65.2%: Washington and Washington State
64.6%: North Carolina and NC State
63.7%: Kansas and Kansas State
62.4%: Clemson and South Carolina
61.1%: Florida and Florida State

So, by the numbers, Texas Tech is much more of a little brother to Texas than MSU is to UM. It could be that it's just accepted there, unlike here. Any Texans care to comment on that? UW and WSU have impressive numbers, too. I have the sense that it's similar to our rivalry. None of the other rivalries (despite the impressive numbers) seem comparable. UNC, Clemson, and Kansas aren't historical football powers. Florida is obviously at the top of the heap now, but FSU has had some good years in the modern age.

Comments welcome...

A great idea to give some sort of normalcy and American recreation to our service men and women overseas. Kudos to Sparty, as well as CMU, WMU, ASU and Purdue. Michigan needs to get in on this.

http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index.ssf/2009/09/michigan_state_passing_f...

Got home to the land of the Blue Water for a few days!  Whew!  I needed some sun and boating and fishing and all that is the glory of Michigan in the Summer.  Hey, if you haven't taken a little time off, call in sick.  Hit the water.  Enjoy your surroundings.  You won't know how much you miss it if you ever have to leave!   

A few observations: I was surprised at the lack of Media Days coverage on some of the TV newscasts I saw.  It was there it was just short.  Even one local daily paper I read had an AP story from the event instead of a byline from a local writer.  I assume that since it wasn't the Freep or Det News that it was mainly a cost thing. 

I did wonder though if it's really been decided in newsrooms that there are tons of college football websites and stations like BTN and ESPN and any other number of speciality publications so we got to see the simple 45 second story with a soundbite.  Seriously, if I'm a daily with maybe 20,000 readers and I have like 2-3 sports people - do I want to waste time going head to head with MGoBlog?  Nope.  Grab the wire copy and roll the presses! 

Then again the Tigers had a huge series with the Pale Hose and there was a lot of coverage on that.  Too bad they blew it in at least the first two games.  (Haven't checked the scores yet on the Sun game).  I guess that really is a big story.  So much for good pitching beats good hitting all the time.  And of course that's when sports gets ANY time in between Mayor K2's flashbacks to his football days, tossing deputies around like freshman quarterbacks. 

Looking around my part of the Mitten (SE) I saw plenty of Tigers shirts and hats.  Hey, it's baseball season.  I saw one Spartan T-shirt on a kid in a store but any other football stuff I saw was clearly Wolverines material.  To be expected I suppose.  I knew a LOT of State people growing up but they just never seemed to be as rabid and never did any one of them ever "reach out" as in "come to our games!"  "Join us!"  M fans sure did!  Probably why I am the way I am. 

In the meantime I have to say that the roads are as bad as I recall.  I think when the defense stops everything coming it's way we should call it "an I-75 job."  The closures make NO sense.  I guess that shouldn't be a big surprise either.  They direct you on a detour of one Interstate that puts you into a construction zone on another Interstate and the traffic reports on radio "on the 8s" are saying: "Smooth sailing out there."  WTF? 

Drove right through C-Bus on the way back to the Land of Rich, right past their vaunted "horseshoe" which is more like a donut with cracks.  Despite getting a cold chill up the back of my neck, it did send a wave of anticpation across the old brain.  Football is almost here.

Thank goodness I can afford a trip to my homeland every now & then.  Hopefully some time soon it will be with M tix in hand!  :)

GO BLUE!