Both schools sit in the same state. Both compete in the same conference. The campuses are 60 miles apart. And for 127 years, they have been meeting on a football field to settle an argument that cannot be settled — which program is Michigan’s program, and which is the other one.
Michigan leads the all-time series 75–38–5. Michigan has won four straight. None of it ends the conversation, because in a state where college football functions as a civic religion, the conversation is the point.
How It Started
The first game was played on October 12, 1898, in Ann Arbor, Michigan winning 39–0. The Detroit Free Press called it “essentially a practice game” — Michigan played 25 different players. The largest margin in series history came four years later: Michigan 119–0 on October 8, 1902, a score that remains one of the most lopsided in the history of college football.
Michigan Agricultural College — the precursor to Michigan State — did not win its first game in the series until 1913, when the Aggies won 12–7. The second win came in 1915, 24–0, prompting the Detroit Free Press to write: “It wasn’t merely a defeat for the Maize and Blue but a massacre, a rout, an annihilation.” Two wins in 28 years of play. Michigan’s overall lead was so commanding that when Michigan introduced the Paul Bunyan Trophy in 1953, athletic director Fritz Crisler reportedly planned to refuse it if Michigan won the first trophy game. Michigan State won.
The Paul Bunyan Trophy
The “Paul Bunyan – Governor of Michigan Trophy” was introduced in 1953 by Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams to commemorate Michigan State’s first year of football competition in the Big Ten. It is a four-foot wooden statue of Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack of American folklore, mounted on a five-foot base — a reference to Michigan’s history as one of the great lumber-producing states of the 19th century. The winner of the annual game keeps it for the year.
The trophy’s early history reflects the series itself. Michigan won in 1954 and 1955 but never engraved their victories on the neglected trophy. When Michigan State won in 1956, they engraved the Wolverine victories themselves. The Spartans then possessed it for eight of the next eleven years. In 1999, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr called it “the ugliest trophy in college football” — then added: “When you don’t have him, you miss him.”
The Series and What It Means
Michigan’s 75–38–5 overall lead obscures the dramatic swings of dominance across different eras. The Spartans’ first sustained run came under coaches Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty, going 14–4–2 from 1950 to 1967 — a stretch that included back-to-back national championships in 1952 and 1965 and four straight wins over Michigan from 1950 to 1953.
Bo Schembechler reversed the tide after arriving at Michigan in 1969, going 17–4 against the Spartans and building a program that won 30 of 38 from 1970 to 2007. The series was so one-sided that Michigan running back Mike Hart could say in 2007, after Michigan’s sixth straight win: “They got excited. Sometimes you get your little brother excited when you’re playing basketball, and you let him get the lead, and then you come back and take it back.”
Mark Dantonio’s response became one of the most consequential press conference statements in the history of the rivalry: “Pride comes before the fall… It’s not over. It’ll never be over here. It’s just starting.” Michigan State then won 10 of the next 14 games. The “little brother” comment and Dantonio’s answer are the axis around which the modern rivalry rotates.
Since 1968, Michigan leads the series 39–19 — the historical weight of the early years obscures a much more competitive recent record.
The Games That Define It
1952 — No. 1 Michigan State: The undefeated, top-ranked Spartans won the national championship and defeated Michigan 27–13 in Ann Arbor. Biggie Munn’s team lost only two games in four seasons.
1990 — “No. 1 vs. No One”: No. 1 Michigan, trailing 28–27 with six seconds left, went for a two-point conversion for the win. Quarterback Elvis Grbac threw incomplete to Desmond Howard — or rather, threw to Howard who was visibly interfered with by a Spartan defender, a call every referee on the field missed. The game ended 28–27 Michigan State. A Michigan Hail Mary was intercepted. Michigan State won.
2001 — Clockgate / Spartan Bob: Michigan led 24–20 with under three minutes left when a sequence of disputed officiating — including a timeout incorrectly charged to Michigan State — allowed the Spartans to run one final play. Quarterback Jeff Smoker threw a touchdown pass to T.J. Duckett with what Michigan coaches and ABC broadcasters argued was no time remaining. “Spartan Bob” Stehlin, the Michigan State timekeeper, was accused by Michigan fans of stopping the clock. The Big Ten changed its timekeeping policy the following year to require a neutral official. Michigan State won 26–24.
2004 — The Braylon Edwards Comeback: Michigan State led No. 12 Michigan 27–10 in the fourth quarter on the road. Braylon Edwards caught two late touchdowns, Michigan recovered an onside kick, and the game went to triple overtime. Edwards finished with 189 yards and three touchdowns. Michigan won 45–37.
2007 — “Little Brother”: Michigan’s sixth straight win, 28–24, on a fourth-quarter comeback. Hart’s postgame comment lit a fuse that burned for a decade. Dantonio’s response — delivered quietly, with absolute conviction — became a coaching manifesto. Michigan State won 10 of the next 14.
2015 — “Trouble with the Snap”: Michigan led 23–21 with 10 seconds left and faced a fourth-and-short at its own end. Coach Jim Harbaugh’s first season. The decision was made to punt. Long snapper, low ball — punter Blake O’Neill bobbled it. Jalen Watts-Jackson picked it up and scored as time expired. Dantonio named the play afterward: “Rangers: Mission 4:10.” Michigan State won 27–23 without leading at any point until the final second.
2021 — Kenneth Walker III: Both programs entered ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 1964 — the first time in series history both were 7–0 or better. Walker rushed for 197 yards and five touchdowns, both series records. Michigan State came back from 30–14 to win 37–33.
2022 — The Tunnel Assault: Michigan won 29–7. After the game, Michigan defensive backs Gemon Green and Ja’Den McBurrows entered the Michigan Stadium tunnel alongside the Michigan State team and were assaulted by multiple Spartan players. Green sustained a concussion and facial cuts from a helmet swing. McBurrows sustained a nose injury. Seven Michigan State players were criminally charged. The Big Ten fined Michigan State $100,000. Khary Crump was sentenced to probation. Six other players entered diversion programs.
2023 — The Scouting Scandal Game: The Big Ten warned Michigan State it had “credible evidence” that Michigan’s staff had scouted MSU’s signals in advance. Michigan suspended staffer Connor Stalions, who had attended games at 11 Big Ten schools. Michigan won 49–0 — the largest margin in the series since 1947, and the largest defeat of Michigan State in East Lansing.
2025: No. 25 Michigan won 31–20 at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Michigan’s fourth straight in the series.
Two Programs, One State, Genuine Differences
Michigan was founded in 1817 as a public research university and built one of the most recognized institutions in the world — 12 national championships, 45 Big Ten titles, 21 Rose Bowl appearances, and the most all-time wins of any program in college football. The Big House seats 107,601 fans.
Michigan State was established in 1855 as a land-grant agricultural college — the first institution in the country to teach scientific agriculture. It pioneered the model that eventually became the Morrill Act, shaping how public higher education is organized across the United States. The Spartans have 20 NCAA team championships including two basketball titles (1979 behind Magic Johnson, 2000 behind the Flintstones — a group of players from the Flint, Michigan area), three ice hockey championships, and six football national championships. Tom Izzo has taken the basketball program to eight Final Fours. Spartan Stadium holds 75,005 fans along the Red Cedar River.
The public-versus-public dynamic matters in Michigan. This is not a rivalry between a private institution and a flagship state university, as it is at UCLA vs. USC or USC vs. Notre Dame. Both programs draw from the same state, the same high schools, and the same families. The division is purely a matter of which color you chose to wear.
NIL and How Fans Are Now Part of It
The Big Ten distributes approximately $63 million per school annually — the highest of any conference — and both Michigan and Michigan State operate within that financial structure. Both programs are protected rivalry games under the conference’s “Flex Protect Model,” guaranteeing the Paul Bunyan game continues annually regardless of scheduling changes. Beginning in 2024, there is now a theoretical possibility that both programs could meet in consecutive weeks if both qualify for the Big Ten Championship Game.
Michigan fans can back Wolverines athletes directly through RallyFuel’s verified NIL deal platform — supporting a program that sits among the most active in Big Ten fan-powered NIL contributions and tracking real performance stats. Michigan’s Champions Circle collective and the Ann Arbor market give athletes brand opportunities backed by one of the largest and most engaged alumni networks in collegiate sports.
Michigan State fans can back Spartans athletes through RallyFuel. Michigan State’s NIL ecosystem benefits from its location in the Detroit economic region, Spartan Stadium’s infrastructure, the Breslin Center, and a loyal alumni base that has built national-level careers in supply chain management, agriculture, and business — sectors where Spartan athletes have genuine commercial reach beyond the sport. Michigan State’s 20 NCAA team championships across football, basketball, ice hockey, and cross country give the program’s athletes a broad platform for the kind of NIL deals that extend across sports.
RallyFuel’s weekly college football predictions game lets fans earn points and direct them toward NIL support — turning the third or fourth Saturday of October into something with stakes on both sides of the scoreboard. The schools leaderboard tracks total fan-driven NIL contributions by program, and the Trophy Case tracks Heisman contenders throughout the season — Tom Harmon won Michigan’s first Heisman in 1940 after scoring all 21 of Michigan’s points against Michigan State; Charles Woodson won in 1997 after making a one-handed interception in this very game on ESPN College GameDay.
Why It Never Ends
Michigan leads 75–38–5. Michigan State has won four of the most memorable plays in series history: Spartan Bob stopping the clock, Blake O’Neill bobbling the snap, Kenneth Walker running for five touchdowns from behind. Michigan has the 119–0 game in 1902. Michigan State has the “little brother” response.
The Paul Bunyan Trophy currently lives in Ann Arbor. Lloyd Carr said it was the ugliest trophy in college football. He also said when you don’t have it, you miss it.
That is the entire history of this rivalry in two sentences. Sixty miles, 127 years, and no resolution in sight.
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