And maybe one day again [the Moms]

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie

Life comes at you fast. Two years ago, Michigan State fans spent the week before the Michigan game humming gleefully in anticipation of the inevitable trouncing. Michigan State was a top-10 with a 6-1 record. Michigan was 3-4 with blowout losses to Notre Dame, Minnesota, and Utah, as well as a loss to Rutgers. Sparty entered as a 17 point favorite, and that felt low. Michigan State ended up winning 35-11, and Michigan fans were somewhat relieved that it hadn't been as DIRECTLY IN THE FACE as we had feared.

Two years later, things have changed more than a little bit. Michigan enters as a 24.5 point favorite in Vegas and an even heavier favorite to the advanced analytics people. In twenty-two months, Jim Harbaugh and Don Brown have built a relentless, remorseless monster. They are outscoring opponents 341-70. They are outgaining opponents 6.37 yards per play to 3.67 yards per play. Meanwhile, Michigan State has spent the last month losing to Indiana, BYU, Northwestern and Maryland.

But let's go back a couple of years for a moment to that 2014 game. During pregame warmups, something thoroughly unimportant happened. Joe Bolden made a one-square-inch hole in the sideline of a football field.

Pictured: blasphemy against the realm

Now, one would think that a gesture so minor (and ultimately foolish and futile) would be quickly forgotten. The key takeaway was that Michigan State was a better football team, top to bottom. They didn't need trickery or shoulder chips or #disrespekt, which is ultimately a stronger message. Man on man, State lined up and thrashed "big brother." Nevertheless, Michigan felt the need to apologize profusely, and Mark Dantonio felt the need to use it as an excuse to run in a late touchdown. This was what Dantonio said afterwards:

You might as well come out and say what you’re really feeling at some point in time, because I can only be diplomatic for so long, The ‘little brother stuff,’ all the disrespect…it didn’t have to go in that direction. We tried to handle ourselves with composure, and that doesn’t come from the coach, it comes from the program.

You know, throwing the stake down in our back yard out here, coming out here like they’re all that it got shoved up their…up their…shoved up…it got shoved the last minute and a half, and we’re not going to pull off of that.

That was the reason. That's what affected his decision-making in a football game: a tent peg. In the field. Before the game.

[These guys went long so hit THE JUMP]

I don't know how Saturday's game will go. I have some guesses, of course, but this can go a number of ways. Maybe Michigan State scores early and finds a way to keep it interesting. Or maybe Michigan pummels Michigan State from pillar to post for sixty minutes. Football is weird. But I feel confident in one prediction: Michigan will not score a late touchdown because Michigan State scored a late touchdown two years ago. Or because of the ending of last year's game. Or because of "where'd all the wolverines go?" Or because of Pride Goes Before the Fall. Or because "We're not selling hope here. We're selling results." Or because of State's constant war on the English language.

No, sir. If presented with the opportunity, Jim Harbaugh scores that late touchdown because his function is to lead his team towards touchdowns. Harbaugh isn't playing Michigan State. He didn't play Illinois last week, he isn't going to play Maryland next week, and he didn't play USC in 2009. No, ma'am. Jim Harbaugh doesn't play teams. He plays football.  The rest is merely superfluous detail; the opponent is just a jersey color and a set of players and tendencies to attack.  He scores points because that is his job, and because that is what the game demands. He considers a poor spot in the last three minutes of a 41-8 game to be an affront because the referees should play to the last whistle. He scores 78 points against Rutgers, not because Rutgers rushed the field in 2014, but because even though you can put in your backups' backups, you can't ask those players to do anything less than 100% of what they are capable of. Harbaugh scores that late touchdown for the same reason George Mallory attempted to scale Mount Everest: because it's there. It is in the climbing. The disposition of the mountain itself is irrelevant.

A former assistant summed up Harbaugh's stance on running up the score by describing an incident in 2004 during Harbaugh's first year as San Diego's head coach. After beating San Diego 61-18, Penn coach Al Bagnoli told Harbaugh in the post-game handshake that "it's not my job to stop our team, that's your job."

I don't think Michigan State can. Michigan 35, Michigan State 11.

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COUNTERPUNT

By Nick RoUMel

It’s over, Sparty.

Yes, you won the lottery and lived large for a while. But now you’re the faded sports star who frittered away his fortune, signing autographs at strip mall openings, reminiscing about your glory days while slouched over the bar at closing time, challenging the traveling salesman to an arm wrestling contest. Dude, give it up.

You coulda been somebody. You coulda been .... a contender. But you weren’t.

That is, not until the Missing Years (2008-2014), when Michigan football fell into a black hole. NASA defines a black hole as “a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. ... This can happen when a star is dying. Because no light can get out, people can’t see black holes.” During the Missing Years, our star was dying, and our once-proud program went invisible.

Before the Missing Years, Michigan State football floundered. After Duffy Daugherty retired in 1972, the next four coaches – Denny Stolz, Darryl Rogers, Muddy Waters, and George Perles - went exactly .500 (121-121-7) with three conference titles in 22 years. The next four coaches, Nick Saban, Bobby Williams, (briefly) Morris Watts, and John L. Smith, finished four games over .500, with no conference titles in 12 years. The storied Saban had four mediocre years, went 10-2, and abruptly left for LSU. In bowl games at State he was 0-3, losing by a combined 85 points. When he left, Saban was heard to complain in frustration how difficult it was to compete against Michigan for recruits.

The Wolverines owned these punks. During the reigns of Bo, Mo and Llo, Michigan was 30-9 against State. We called them “Little Brother” and got away with it. When they won, they cheated. Remember Eddie Brown intentionally interfering with Desmond Howard in 1990? “Spartan Bob” stopping the clock in 2001?

Not even Mark Dantonio could save them. In his first year, MSU was 7-6, finishing 7th in the conference. It looked like yet another .500 coach who would hang out for a few years, maybe go to the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, and end up coaching Pee-Wee football in Zanesville, Ohio.

Then the Missing Years came. Suddenly the Spartans were the once-down-on-their-luck homeless bum who finds a lottery ticket, buys a mansion, and decorates it with lawn furniture and large screen TVs in every room. They invited their friends over to drink beer and use the spittoon in the living room, and expressed mock outrage when the neighbor poked a small hole in the lawn, right next to the spray-painted truck tires with geraniums planted in the middle.

During the Missing Years, Sparty went 80-27, won as many conference titles (3) as they had in the previous 43 years, won twice as many bowl games as Saban, Williams, and Smith combined. Even worse, they beat Michigan 6 of 7!

Then came last year. By all measures, Sparty should have reverted to form. But fortune smiled upon them, with narrow victories against Western Michigan, Oregon, Purdue, and Rutgers. (Then there was “That Thing” ....) Later in the season, Ohio State inexplicably laid down for Sparty like they were on Quaaludes, the take, or both. Following that was another close win in the Big Ten Championship against Iowa, and believe it or not, Sparty finished 12-1. (But all you heard about was how they allegedly got robbed in their lone loss, to Nebraska.)

Why did “That Thing” happen after the Missing Years were over? It was supposed to be our year! Well, think of it like that that terrible, destructive relationship that hangs on for years for no good reason, and finally you think it’s over; but then you get drunk one Saturday and something horrible happens that you can’t quite remember, and you wake up like in the Godfather movie with a bloody horse head in your bed and it haunts you all year.

(At least that’s how I think of it to make myself feel better.)

Well now. Sparty ended the 2015 season being the only bowl team to not score any points, getting clobbered by the once-mediocre Nick Saban and his Alabama team, 38-0. Their luck finally gave out.

That bowl drubbing was a fitting lead-in for 2016. Michigan State, a pre-season Top Ten team, struggled against Furman (LOL), managed to beat the softest team on their schedule (Notre Dame), then stunningly lost five straight conference games. (ROTFL)

On paper, MSU stands no chance against a surging Wolverine squad. They need Eddie Brown, Spartan Bob, and all the outrage and luck they can muster. Yes, a win today for the Green team is theoretically possible - but if we’re talking theory, then the Green party can win the election on November 8, right?

Here’s your reality: Sparty’s over. I hesitate only slightly to say it, because until Michigan actually and for real gets that damned monkey off their back, I may be premature in boasting. But that’s the beauty of sports. You get to woof before the game, and whine afterwards. And today, I’m woofing like the pit bulls chained in the yard, peeing on those spray-painted tire planters.

MICHIGAN 42, MICHIGAN STATE 7