FootballSaturday, November 15, 2019
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M

y Uber driver last weekend didn’t 
care about Michigan or Michigan 
State.
His son goes to Indiana, he explained, 
so he’s a Hoosiers fan with no real 
connection to either in-state school. 
Naturally, though, 
the conversation still 
drifted to this game, 
because that’s what 
happens in this state.
Instantly, his tone 
changed: Well, yeah, 
of course I care about 
the Michigan State 
game. He’ll be root-
ing for Michigan, he 
explained, without 
providing a reason.
To me, the uninitiated out-of-state kid, 
that still seems weird. Because on paper, 
this game doesn’t really matter.
I know that’s not 100 percent accurate. 
For the Wolverines, a loss would end any 
faint hopes at a New Years’ Six Bowl. For 
Michigan State, it could be the difference 
between the Quick Lane Bowl and the 
Pinstripe Bowl — both worthy succes-
sors to its prestigious 2018 RedBox Bowl 
appearance.
But around these parts, none of that is 
the talking point. Eight Michigan players 
and three coaches were made available 
to the media this week. The sole question 
about the Wolverines’ Big Ten title hopes 
was instantly struck down.
There’s seemingly universal agreement 
that Michigan is going to win, but that’s 
not the talking point either. The Wolver-
ines are favored by 13.5, the type of line 
more befitting of a game against Purdue 
or Illinois than one against the Spartans 
— and more importantly, the type of game 
Jim Harbaugh has never lost at Michigan.
By pure loss probability, it ranks a dis-
tant fifth behind trips to Wisconsin and 
Penn State and visits from Notre Dame 
and Iowa. The lead-up to each of those 
Saturdays brought legitimate suspense, 
and subsequent dissection of the Wolver-
ines’ strengths and weaknesses.
This week has provided none of that. 
On paper, it isn’t as important as any of 
those top-25 bouts. And yet, this ostensi-
bly meaningless game is Michigan’s most 
important since last November.
Just ask Harbaugh: “Most important 
game of the season — it’s our next game, 
and it’s huge, big game. I think everybody 
would share those feelings.”
Or Ambry Thomas: “You come to 
Michigan to play in this game right here 
and that team down there in Ohio. You 
come to Michigan to play in these two 
games.”
Or even Aidan Hutchinson: “Obviously, 
Michigan State (is) our biggest rival — or, 
maybe our biggest rival.”
You get the point.

It’s a point that was instantly ham-
mered home Monday afternoon, the 
second I walked into Schembechler Hall, 
even before Harbaugh took to the podi-
um. Where there are usually six or seven 
cameras lined behind the media seats, 
this week required two rows. As players 
later spoke in scrums, reporters lined up 
three or four deep.
None of this, on the surface, should 
have come as a surprise. This isn’t my 
first rivalry week and I remember the 
similarly-sized swarms that preceded last 
year’s rivalry games.
It shouldn’t have caught me off guard 
when Thomas said, “It’s about who’s the 
big brother and who’s the little sister in 
this state” given the similar hysteria sur-
rounding last year’s game.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise when 
I was sitting in the Starbucks on State 
Street and overheard a kid telling some-
one on the phone that he couldn’t come 
home this weekend “because it’s Michi-
gan State.” After all, it was just two years 
ago that I was offered $200 for my ticket 
to see John O’Korn take on the Spartans 
in the driving rain.
But all of it still seems just a little bit 
strange.
Each of the past two matchups car-
ried the tangible notion of championship 
hopes for Michigan, against a Spartans 
team with a pulse. For an out-of-stater 
like myself, I suppose there was some 
ingrained assumption that the hype was 
correlated with how much the actual 
game mattered.
But then again, I’m from the part of the 
country where the notion that this game 
matters as much as the Ohio State game 
would seem absurd. The part of the coun-
try known as, ‘Not Michigan.’
This week, that’s the lesson I’m learn-
ing.
All it took to cement it was a conversa-
tion with my girlfriend, who’s lived in 
Michigan her whole life. Every year dur-
ing this game, she’ll get a text from her 
dad with a picture of him decked out in 
maize and blue. Her sister — a Michigan 
State grad — gets a picture from him, too, 
but hers is green and white.
So this week, I had her ask her family 
group chat who’s rooting for who. Her 
mom’s response was swift: Michigan. Her 
dad, as of this writing, is still evading the 
question. Inside, she knows it’s Michigan 
State. Just another person to trash talk if 
Michigan wins and hide from if they lose.
It’s a small snapshot of why this game 
matters so much, an explanation for the 
hysteria surrounding a matchup with a 
4-5 opponent.
It’s also what makes this rivalry so 
great.
 

Mackie can be reached via email at thmackie@

umich.edu or on Twitter @TheoMackie.

What makes a rivalry

THEO 
MACKIE

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Michigan State has won eight of the last 12 matchups in the in-state rivalry, including two of the last four.

