MSU "Little Brother" Mantra likely not going to die
I didn't see this discussed yet, but a slight mention by Brian regarding this weekend's half-time show by the MMB got me thinking. As you may recall if you were in attendance, and not stuck in a line waiting for some stadium grub or a restroom, the MMB performed a pretty creative and funny show during the break of the NW game. I found the content relavent since we have debated several times on this blog about the necessity of some to continue to refer to MSU as "little brother". For all of the humor and back-and-fotrth that the matra has created over the past 5 years, it seems there are enough who wish it would just go away. The balance of power has been restored after this years win, and there is no logical evidence that suggests that Sparty will have another 4 game run like they enjoyed since Mike Hart graduated.
With all of that being said, it is fair to think that perhaps the moniker will not die. When the MMB uses it as a half-time feature to denigrate the school that's located "North until you smell it, West until you step in it", you know that it's use and understanding has escaped the control of the former players, current coaches, and casual fans of the rivalry. Evidenced by the laughing and obvious applause that the comments received by the crowd in attendance on Saturday, I think that, for better or for worse, it is now permanently part of the Michigan Football Lexicon. So, like Spartan Bob so famously started nearly a decade ago... let the debates begin.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:20 PM ^
November 12th, 2012 at 4:22 PM ^
Varsity sport in 1879 vs 1896 Older
National Championships 11 vs 6 Better
All time record 902–314–36 (.735) vs 641–431–44 (.594) Better
Head to head record 67-32-5 (.668) Better
Stadium 114000 vs 80000 Larger
Based purely on statistical facts, we are the Big Brother indeed.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:30 PM ^
I find it hard not to scoff at their "6" national titles. In 1957, Auburn won the AP poll, Ohio State won the UPI poll. MSU claims a national title from that year though. Historically, lots of different organizations gave away the title of "National Champion."
Michigan could claim national championships (but don't) from: 1985 (Matthews, Sagarin), 1973 (National Championship Foundation), and 1964 (Dunkel).
In 1955, MSU claims another national title from Boand despite Oklahoma having the distinction of "National Champion" given to them by: AP, Berryman, Billingsley, DeVold, Dunkel, Football Research, FW, Helms, INS, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Poling, Sagarin, UPI, Williamson.
I'm too tired to look up the rest of their national titles, but I'm pretty sure I read once that they really only have 2 legitimate national titles in football.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:27 PM ^
MSU has been called little brother for as long as they have called us arrogant asses. I believe it was Darryl Rogers who started that nickname for us. That's at least four decades.
Mike Hart didn't invent the little brother nickname. But for some reason when he used it, MSU fans suddenly became pissed and Michigan fans started using it more.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:28 PM ^
November 12th, 2012 at 6:55 PM ^
Yeah, cool story, but why are you facist?
/s
Nice to see you back today, even if you are now just a peon like myself rather than a MgoVIP.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:38 PM ^
For those of you too young to remember, MSU is called "Little Brother" (and Mike Hart said it) because they always have, and always will, care about beating Michigan WAY more than Michigan cares about beating them. Watching MSU unravel every year after the Michigan game is a time-honored tradition; the only reason to note MSU's existence at all is to make sure we don't slip up and lose to them, thus having to hear them consider themselves equal until we put the universe back in order again.
The last four years have been excruciating to watch Michigan fans obsess over MSU; we won; now we can stop. On to OSU and the other big boys that matter. Return MSU to the irrelevance they deserve - they're a 5-5 team that obsesses way too much about their better, more established in-state rival. Don't give them extra publicity/attention and validate them any further - what annoys them the most is us ignoring them.
THAT is what little brother is all about.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:23 PM ^
The thought of MSU unraveling after losses to Michigan is something I find both interesting and hilarious. Is MSU's recent success due to the confidence they gained after wins against Michigan? I guess they may have just had good teams, but MSU's psychological state is unique. I wonder what effect this type of thing would have on Michigan if the annual OSU game was moved from the last game in the season. Would Michigan or OSU be subject to the same type of collapse after a big loss to the other? Maybe MSU would have more success as a program if their final game was against Michigan? Obviously the Michigan OSU relationship is much different than Michigan MSU, but it's definitely something to look at.
November 13th, 2012 at 10:01 AM ^
The unraveling is something that occurred during the JLS/Bobby years where we would be 5-0 or something of the like going into the Michigan game and end up being 5-7 on the year after an excruciating loss to Michigan. The collective let down after the Michigan game has been put to an end in the Dantonio era as he is 6-0 the week after the Michigan game. So this "unraveling" you are speaking about is most def. a thing of the past.
November 13th, 2012 at 12:31 PM ^
They'd be so hype that they'd lose the next game. And that goes even back to the good coaches MSU had.
1990 - lose next game to Illinois.
1995 - win the next game (saved by Indiana) but lose last 2.
1999 - Even Saban couldn't save that good team from losing their next 2.
2001 - lose next 3. (Including Indiana and Purdue).
Dantonio has fixed that win or lose.
He still needs some work on actually preparing for the game before Michigan, instead of just Michigan for 2 weeks though.....(1-4 the week before Michigan, with one bye week).
November 12th, 2012 at 6:59 PM ^
November 12th, 2012 at 4:41 PM ^
November 12th, 2012 at 4:46 PM ^
I've never really cared about the "little brother" mantra because it always felt so missplaced. MSU is perfectly acceptable college and football team; it just isn't anything better than literally dozens of other programs. The difference is not from MSU's failures as a team as much as the prominence and history of UM. Basically every team in the Big Ten except OSU and maybe PSU have histories that pale in comparison to UM's, and so they are all "little brothers" in the sense that they will always be second-class citizens on the football field. As Brian noted in his game recap, UM is a rich man who finds $1,000 bills on the ground every fall and spring while the rest of the teams are happy to pull wadded-up $20 from under the rug. Without UM and OSU in the conference, Wiscy and MSU would assume greater prominence (as evidence, look the past couple of years when UM and OSU were going through their issues), and our view of them would be different. The hierarchy established over decades of football has designated certain tiers for teams to occupy, and with rare exceptions nobody moves up or down much. Like a caste system, each team has an established lineage, and unless a truly revolutionary figure arrives who can change that slotting, MSU will always be a second-tier program, behind schools like UM but also OSU, Wiscy, (post-sanctions) PSU, and (probably) Nebraska.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:52 PM ^
Out of curiosity, how often do you deal with Sparty on a daily basis?
The "Little Brother" meme has little to do with football. It has to do with the complex. They are Little Brother because they act like Little brother outside of the football field, and it's the student body and alumni, not just the football team.
November 12th, 2012 at 7:40 PM ^
Narduzzi: Martinez is way faster than Robinson
Flagship message board, the RCMB, after MSU loses its basketball opener to UConn: 2 front page threads on how Michigan sucks because it played Slippery Rock
Dantonio: numerous juvenile jabs, where's the threat, laying in the weeds, we didn't come here to talk about Michigan football, and on and on
Win or lose, it always comes back to Michigan. That is the behavior of a little brother envious of a successful big brother.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:48 PM ^
Got to be honest here I'm not a big fan of the little brother meme. That said, it's never going to die just as Walmart Wolverine will be around longer than the store itself. Immature name-calling and college rivalries go hand in hand.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:53 PM ^
"Is this guy really a QB I'll say my mans (walk-on Tommy Vento) is a better QB lol," - linebacker Denicos Allen
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"I can play quarterback for the school in blue. (Le'Veon Bell) for heisman > the other guy in the great state of michigan." - linebacker Jamal Lyles
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"#ShoutOut to the refs...yall won the game tonight! Toughest team we played all year.."
— LeVeon Bell (@L_Bell24) November 4, 2012
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THIS IS SOME BULLS***
— Lawrence Thomas (@LThomas_8) November 4, 2012
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I will stop calling them little brother when they stop acting like one.
November 12th, 2012 at 4:56 PM ^
I thought it bordered on being a little disrespectful. If you make fun of someone and I think it's witty/funny, then great, but the halftime show was neither, just replaying our old insults.
Also, I don't care that much about MSU now that the game is past. Michigan beat them. Michigan recruits better. Michigan is going to beat them a lot more in the future. Whatever. Stop talking about them.
November 13th, 2012 at 9:53 AM ^
People keep describing the halftime show on here in vague terms. For those of us not at the game, what happened? I'm really curious to find out.
November 13th, 2012 at 12:23 PM ^
And as they've done with other shows, the characters were represented by rival Universities. The Gluttony kid was Wisconsin. The one who blow up (ego) was ND. OSU was the girl who was greedy. And MSU was the TV kid. (And of course the Charlie character was all Michigan). So they were trying to get the golden ticket to gain admission to the University of Michigan. Led by Drum Major Wonka. (Who did some of the great classic flips). Each gets disqualified for their flaws, with some good costuming and stuff on the scenes as the band played and they went around the field. It was one of the band's really good halftime shows. The only thing I think kept it from being a classic is that the skits were well thought out, but when the band was actually playing the music, I'm not sure they had choreographed much for the characters to do except run around in circles in the interim. But a nice call to some of their best stuff. And the oompa loompa's were appropriately creepy.
November 12th, 2012 at 5:10 PM ^
All those empty seats in East Lansing vs Nebraska illustates their inferiority perfectly. I don't recall seeing that many empty seats in a UM game unless it's the first quarter and UM students are exercising their right to temporal insouciance. If they were our equal they'd go see their team play in person. But they aren't, so they don't.
November 12th, 2012 at 8:06 PM ^
November 12th, 2012 at 5:44 PM ^
I always thought that there were things that went beyond football that sort of contributed to the "inferiority complex" that many perceive, if you will. I couldn't find the exact link, but I know someone posted it here last year around the time of our game with MSU - it was an article from "The Only Colors" about the historical wrongs that they see as attributable to the University Of Michigan.
Among some of the more notable ones, as I recall, were the lack of enthusiasm over MSU's entrance into the Big Ten (and an accusation that Michigan tried to sabotage their entry into the conference), the resistance to the name change to Michigan State University from Michigan Agricultural College (that it might cause confusion), and the attempted "theft" of various programs.
It might have been a well-researched work except for the fact that all the sources were MSU sources, so the objectivity of the whole piece is in question, I would say, especially when the school paper and the alumni magazine were the only sources of record.
So, there's that...sort of.
November 12th, 2012 at 7:21 PM ^
It wouldn't surprise me if Michigan did, in fact, oppose MSU's entry into the B1G, and try to protect its turf in other ways. Why would any university in the B1G be excited to add an in-state rival for recruiting, or raise the profie of another state-funded school that would compete with it for state resources?
In any case, it's been a very long time since 1949, and longer still for some of the other claims MSU people are still p.o.'ed about.
Yes, they're a newer school by a few years. And the older school is the one with the big reputation. That reputation didn't come from football. It came from being a top-tier academic institution with a more selective student body and more highly regarded professors in many of the disciplines.
There's also no comparison between the law schools, the medical schools, and the business school in terms of prestige.
It's also true that some MSU programs are absolutely excellent, even on a national level. But they're not in the more traditional fields that universities are often judged (or misjudged) by.
MSU people need to get over what happened 60 some years ago. It's time.
And they need to get over the relative ranking of the two schools in terms of national perception. It's going to take a long time for that to change - if it ever does.
However, there's no reason to diss MSU. It's a good school, its graduates do just fine in life, and Dantonio has brought them a very good football program.
November 12th, 2012 at 5:59 PM ^
To be fair, the little brother moniker existed before Hart's quote. I read a Freep article back in like 2004 that referred to MSU as the little brother of the schools.
November 12th, 2012 at 6:17 PM ^
of being disrespectful, that is why I live in central ohio but have always been a Michigan fan. I'll call them sparty but thanks anyway........
November 12th, 2012 at 8:36 PM ^
November 12th, 2012 at 9:19 PM ^
I didn't see the halftime show, so I may be way off, but from the description in the OP, it sounds like the halftime show was little brotherish.
November 13th, 2012 at 12:19 AM ^
"For all of the humor and back-and-fotrth that the matra has created over the past 5 years, it seems there are enough who wish it would just go away."
This just isn't true OP. The only people who want it to go away are a small portion of the people who post on here and they tend to be a certain kind of fan. A portion of the fan base (and it's a small portion) want it to go away... but the vast majority either don't care or love the term. And lets face it, if MSU didn't validate the terms use and definition over and over and over again then it wouldn't be such a big part of the rivalries lexicon. It's like my friend Trevor used to say when he was hammered and was trying to rib people, "It's funny because it's true!"
November 13th, 2012 at 10:00 AM ^
November 13th, 2012 at 8:54 AM ^
The meme is never going to die because MSU will never let it die. They want to be little brother because it lets them justify all their boorish and juvenile behavior. So when Mark Dantonio rudely interrupts a Michigan assistant coach at a seminar, the reaction from the fanbase isn't one of embarrassment, but one of defiance. They've portrayed themselves as the righteous underdog fighting the good fight against the arrogant, evil empire. That's their identity, it doesn't matter if it comes nowhere near reality.
November 13th, 2012 at 10:20 AM ^
The Marching Band this past weekend. Mike Spartee was a whining punk. His big brother, on the other hand, seems like a cool guy.
November 13th, 2012 at 11:38 AM ^
As an MSU alum I definitely feel the "little brother" moniker is definitive of the relationship between UofM and MSU. Nobody can deny the more storied tradition in academics and sports at UofM. I personally think the jab is hilarious because it cuts to the very core of the in state rivalry. I don't mind it at all when family and friends use it in casual rivalry conversation. Spartan fans would do well to remember that just because UofM is considered a great school doesn't mean MSU is not a good school.
At the same time, I would caution against generalizations based upon the subjective opinions that all Spartans are obsessed with UofM and only UofM or that individual Spartans are boorish, juvenile, and generally inferior hence deserving of a pejorative moniker.
November 13th, 2012 at 12:28 PM ^
You can have a formal retirement ceremony right here on the blog. Doesn't mean I will personally stop using it...