Semi OT: Does Sparty ever tackle a fake Wolverine mascot when we play in East Lansing?

and don't recall this scene. I was also rather drunk and possibly not paying attention/left my seat.

I was at the 2003 game and this definitely happened. It was a fugly Wolverine too, obviously the cheapest they could do. I don't recall it happening since.

I was at that game, stone sober, in the student section and don't remember it happening (edit: apparently I missed it).  I do remember Chris Perry running all over Michigan State and after his 50+ carry performance coming over to the student section and taking a bow...

It is on Youtube.  If, as I think you are, confusing "Bucky" for a Wolverine.

Bucky was running around with an S flag, and a Spartan cheerleader blindsided him.

Link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPWXPeNsbRw

Edit: Oh, God - Seeing that picture of that yellow-and-blue thing, I do now recall that from the 2005 game.

in the 2005 game (an OT win, the one in which Henne fumbled (or passed, depending on your camera angle) and their red-haired Samoan DT returned it for a TD).

There was a ridiculous looking Wolverine mascot-thing that ran around on the field in front of the student section before Sparty took it out. MSU has done this to other mascots, as well - kind of stupid, but it does get the students going.

(edit) I found a picture! Everything is on the interwebs! (/edit)

I actually went to highschool with a girl that is going to be an MSU cheerleader, and I think I saw some pictures on facebook of this fugly mascot. They were at some cheer camp and there were a ton of mascots (half of which looked like jokes).

I was going on 0 hours of sleep in three days for that game. I know I imagined something, but I can't now remember if it was Sparty tackling a Wolverine mascot proxy, or a polar bear (not hockeybear*) who sat down at midfield and started eating a Klondike bar.

* Requisite hockeybear link:

Yes. Sparty dressed a poor student up in a sorry excuse for a wolverine costume so they could tackle him.

I don't know where an image of it would be, but I was in the MMB for that game and remember thinking it was a terrible waste of Sparty's time and money at the time.

Starting from their humble Michigan Agricultural College beginnings to the temporarily arrogant MSU of today, they have always had a weakness for animals.  

Especially kicking them.  

Rock on Sparty, rock on...

When I was a kid, late sixties or early seventies Sparty was at that time a large papier mache'/fiberglass kind of thing that set on a normally-costumed body.  Not the stuffed neoprene multi-part bodywear thing they've got now.  (It was a better-looking Sparty, just like their helmets were better-looking then too.) 

Anyway, the one and only Sparty head went missing -- stolen -- and it was kind of ugly, with people wondering what happened to it.

Then, the UM-MSU game gets played at Michigan stadium, and one of our (then all-male) cheerleaders runs out onto the field, with the missing Sparty head on, completely repainted maize and blue with a block M on the side.  One of my favorite youthful memories from Michigan Stadium.

I believe they do it every time we play them there.  I know they  have multiple times.  They use the same wolverine costume every time - a blue Muppet-looking creature with googly eyes.  Sparty beats him up to racous applause.  No amount of explaining will ever convince Spartan fans that it isn't really our mascot. 

went to UM/MSU in 2001 and 2003 and it happened both years.

During the 2003 game, they came back from commercial break and had a big close up of that Wolverine-bear-tiger looking thing.  I turned to my dad and asked, "Do we have a mascot at games now?" 

I went back and watched the tape later and it looked obvious that it was nothing more than cheap looking costume that MSU students put together (probably the night before) so Sparty could have something to tackle during the game to fire the crowd up.  They couldn't beat us on the field so this was all they had.   

You can see it here during the opening montage to start the third quarter in 03...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX30zGqTsaM

Because I have an insider on this issue.

Back in the days, 2003, my brother was a walk-on fullback at Michigan St.  He didn't see the field or anything, but often got tickets to the games.  After that year, he quit the football team and became a cheerleader (where he met his female fiance, FWIW).  They have had several different "Michigan" mascots over the years, each time the same thing happening and stuff.  But Michigan State's use of the fake mascot some how got banned after 2003.  Whether it was from Michigan demanding so, the Big Ten, or something else I don't know, but it for sure wasn't up to Michigan State to stop doing it.

\insider info.