Inside the Numbers: Time Michigan, Not MSU, Plays Its Best In This Rivalry

When I published this column at Maize n Brew last year, Michigan was a 10.5-point favorite vs. MSU, and by the time the ball was kicked off that Saturday at Michigan Stadium, the line was 12.5 points. Many picked the Wolverines to win, and some picked them to win decisively because U-M was 4-0 and at home, while MSU was fresh off of a 3-9 campaign.

I warned them, though, not to expect such a result because, under Mark Dantonio, the Spartans have always played their absolute best against Michigan, whether they’re contending for a Big Ten championship or just scrapping for their first conference victory.

In Dantonio’s first meeting vs. Michigan in 2007, Michigan State led by 10 points midway through the fourth quarter before a series of extraordinary plays, including Mario Manningham soaring over a Spartan cornerback on third-and-long for the game-deciding touchdown, guided U-M to a 28-24 win, just enough to cover the 3.5-point spread.

Dantonio took the loss personally, and his program responded in kind, covering the spread against Michigan in each of the next nine matchups from 2008 through 2016. The Spartans didn’t just cover the spread either. They absolutely crushed it, beating the spread by an average of 12.6 points per game in each of those nine matchups and not once beating the spread by fewer than 6.5 points.

I thus told readers to expect to sweat in the fourth quarter of the 2017 game, considering Michigan was a 12.5-point favorite and Michigan State had beaten the spread by an average of 12.6 points the past nine meetings. You couldn’t see if U-M fans were sweating that night because they were drenched by the monsoon that transformed The Big House into a water park, but they were. MSU jumped to a 14-3 lead before making its offering to Poseidon. They then relied on the rain, their defense, five U-M turnovers and a failed Hail Mary to hold onto the 14-10 upset. The Spartans again beat the spread, and this time, it was by 16.5 points.

Accordingly, Michigan State is 10-0 against the spread in its last 10 contests vs. Michigan, and MSU has beaten the spread in those games by an insane average of 13.0 points.

That is almost two full touchdowns better than expected.

This brings us back to this week. The Wolverines are riding high after winning their sixth straight game and wrecking Wisconsin, 38-13, under the lights last Saturday. They erased any doubt about if they can win a big game under Jim Harbaugh and planted themselves into the Playoff picture, ranking sixth in the AP Poll and fourth in S&P+, an advanced metric derived from the play-by-play and drive data of every game. As a result, Michigan is a seven-point favorite at Michigan State, even if MSU just upset Penn State on the road.

If this was last year’s column, this is where I would tell you that you should expect Michigan State to upset Michigan again. The spread is seven points, and in their past 10 meetings, the Spartans have never outperformed the spread by fewer than 6.5 points.

I would then mention the same caveats that apply. That Vegas spreads do not intend to project the margin of victory but rather to split the money bet between the two teams so that the sportsbook wins regardless. Or that the matchups this Saturday, from the players to the coaches, are different from prior seasons. Or that the final scores aren’t always reflective of the circumstances of a particular game. But that nonetheless, you should expect MSU, a team that feasts on disrespect and whose staunch run defense tends to disrupt U-M, to play its best game again.

Yet this isn’t last year’s column. It’s this year’s column, so I'm issuing a challenge instead.

This is a big game for Michigan, and the Wolverines can win it without playing their best game — as can the Spartans. Yet this week should not just be about U-M winning. It should be about Michigan, not MSU, providing its absolute best performance in this rivalry game for once in the past decade. Michigan State will never be considered a bigger football rival than Ohio State, but the Wolverines should be embarrassed by how much the Spartans have taken it to them since Dantonio arrived. Every year, the Spartans come more prepared and hungrier, and each year, the Wolverines don’t seem to match that intensity and perform to their capabilities.

At some point, enough has to be enough for Michigan, and with the Big Ten East in their control and a path to the College Football Playoff plainly in sight, there is no better time for the Wolverines to put their foot down, minimize the mistakes, execute and send a message that Michigan can do to Michigan State what Michigan State has done to Michigan for a decade.

Play its best game of the season against its in-state rival.

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