It only amounted to about five minutes of actual game time, but the experience Brian Lewerke got last year against Michigan is hard to quantify. Now Michigan State’s starting quarterback, Lewerke was called on in the fourth quarter of last season’s rivalry game with the Wolverines and sparked a stagnant offense, leading it to a touchdown that cut Michigan’s lead to 30-17, then marching the Spartans into the red zone on the next drive. However, it all ended there as Lewerke was sacked by Michigan’s Jabrill Peppers, a play that broke Lewerke’s leg and knocked him out for the rest of the season.
Michigan and Michigan State will play football under the lights for the first time in the series when they kickoff at Michigan Stadium at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Michigan State has won seven of the past nine, but Michigan regained the Paul Bunyan Trophy with a 32-23 victory in East Lansing in 2016. The rivalry is steeped in history, but we focused on recent history while pulling out some of the Spartans’ top moments in the series:
Many of Michigan State’s pivotal players didn’t even see the field the last time they beat Michigan, save for a 54-yard mad dash across Michigan Stadium to celebrate an improbable victory. The same holds true for the Wolverines. But those few Spartans who have experienced the rivalry know their young teammates will find out quickly what it means.
It may not be the last week of the college football season, but this is a rivalry week for the Michigan State Spartans and Michigan Wolverines, who are gearing up for one of the fiercest games in the country this weekend.
Michigan had dropped to around a two-TD favorite for Saturday’s game. And now, the Wolverines are down to just a 10.5-point favorite at most Las Vegas casinos.Double-digit point spreads in the rivalry are rare, even if it’s happened in two of the last three years. This would be only the seventh time since 1996.
Michigan State has one of the youngest rosters in the Big Ten, and that youth is about to dive into a rivalry that is usually the most physical game on the schedule. Of course, that is the Michigan State-Michigan rivalry and the Spartans’ young players will get a quick dose of what it means to play for the Paul Bunyan Trophy when the teams square off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Michigan Stadium.
Plenty has changed in the last two decades of the rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State.Coaches have come and gone, the series has swung one way or the other and plenty of trash talk has been flung on both sides.But, ask Mark Dantonio, and the rivalry remains the same.
Michigan State and Michigan will play a night game for the first time in the history of the rivalry. It was announced Monday that the Spartans and Wolverines will kick off at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 7 at Michigan Stadium. During his weekly press conference on Tuesday morning, Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio didn’t offer an opinion about the night game. “Just focused on the task at hand, really, focused on the present,” Dantonio said. “I’ll deal with that next week.”
Michigan State and Michigan will play under the lights in Ann Arbor. Michigan’s Oct. 7 home game against rival Michigan State will kick at 7:30 p.m. and be televised on ABC. It’ll be the first night game between the Wolverines and Spartans at Michigan Stadium and the fourth home night game in Michigan history. Michigan has hosted Notre Dame (2011, 2013) at night twice and Penn State (2014) once.
A proposal to make Michigan-Michigan State a protected Big Ten basketball rivalry received “unanimous” support at a recent meeting of the league’s coaches.
Tori Jankoska made five 3-pointers in setting a single-season school record and scored 28 points in leading Michigan State over No. 20 Michigan 86-68 on Sunday before a record sellout crowd of 12,707 who watched the in-state rivals in their only meeting this season.
Four consecutive goals and 23-save effort from freshman goaltender John Lethemon were more than enough to give the Michigan State hockey team a dominating 4-1 victory over Michigan on Saturday night at Yost Ice Arena.
For the third time in four meetings this season, Michigan State and Michigan needed overtime to settle the outcome. The two teams played to a 4-4 tie on Friday night at Joe Louis Arena in the “Duel in the D.”
The most played rivalry in college hockey continues this weekend as MSU hockey (5-17-2, 1-8-1 Big Ten) faces off against in-state rival University of Michigan (9-13-2, 2-7-1-1 Big Ten) in a two-game series.
For the last 26 years, Michigan State and Michigan have played each other in a conference game at Joe Louis Arena. Since 1990-91, the Spartans and Wolverines have met 29 times in the middle of winter at the home of the Detroit Red Wings, and usually in a compelling, exciting atmosphere that highlights one of college hockey’s greatest rivalries. This great tradition will be extended one more time on Friday before it ends with the closing of Joe Louis Arena in the spring.
Friday’s “Duel in the D” will be the 56th meeting (20-30-5) between the Spartans and Wolverines at Joe Louis Arena … The 312 all-time meetings between the programs make it the most-played rivalry in college hockey.
Tom Izzo ran the gamut of facial expressions Tuesday night, and none of them expressed satisfactions as his Spartans (14-10, 6-5 Big Ten) fell 86-57 on the road to Michigan (15-9, 5-6). The Spartans saw their two-game winning streak squashed as Michigan built a 30-point lead that it would never come close to relinquishing.
Michigan State drops rematch with Michigan 86-57 Spartan Tailgate
With a chance for a third straight win and a sixth consecutive victory over its in-state rival, Michigan State failed to show up Tuesday at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor. Playing their worst game of the season and possibly the worst half of head coach Tom Izzo’s two decades in charge, the Spartans trailed by as many as 30 points on the way to an 86-57 loss to Michigan less than two weeks after beating the Wolverines by eight.
Michigan State falls at Michigan, 86-57 MSUSpartans.com
Miles Bridges scored 15 points for the Spartans, but it would not be enough as Michigan State fell at Michigan by a score of 86-57 on Tuesday night. Derrick Walton had 20 points and eight assists for Michigan. Tuesday night equaled the most lopsided victory for Michigan over the Spartans since 1948.
Turnover bug sweeps through Ann Arbor, MSU blown-out by U-M 86-57 State News
After a 70-62 win over U-M just nine days ago, MSU men’s basketball (14-10, 6-5 Big Ten) was blown-out by 29 points to U-M (15-9 overall, 5-6 Big Ten). The 86-57 game splits this year’s two-game season series between the rivals.
Michigan blitzes Michigan State early, often for 86-57 win at Crisler Detroit Free Press
The Wolverines (15-9, 5-6 Big Ten) raced out to one of the great halves of Beilein’s 10-year tenure, shooting 75% from the field, 72% from three-point range and dropping 55 points on the stunned Spartans. Just nine days earlier in East Lansing, Michigan scored 62 points for the entire game in an eight-point loss and showed none of the passion and fire.
From bad to worse: Michigan State blown away, 86-57, at Michigan Detroit Free Press
Miles Bridges missed a wide-open Nick Ward, picked up an offensive foul and shot an airball as the shot clock expired. That was Michigan State’s first three possessions. And it only got worse from there. Much worse.
Michigan dominates from start to finish against MSU Detroit News
Over the last three years, the Michigan-Michigan State game hadn’t been much of a rivalry. On Tuesday night, it wasn’t much of a game. Michigan played with a sense of desperation and manhandled Michigan State from start to finish in an 86-57 blowout Tuesday at Crisler Center to stop a five-game losing streak in the series.
What he said: Tom Izzo reflects on blowout loss at Michigan Land of 10
Tom Izzo saw his team put forth a good week of practice only to lay an egg in the game that followed. The Spartans’ 86-57 road loss to arch rival Michigan on Tuesday night left Izzo disappointed, but not necessarily surprised. He had seen inconsistency from his freshman-laden team, and it reared its head again at Crisler Center.
Tom Izzo: Michigan State’s turnovers were ‘a joke,’ continue to be nagging issue MLive
Tom Izzo went with a script to start things off Tuesday night in Ann Arbor. For most of the week — a week Izzo believed was his team’s best total practice effort of the year — Michigan State installed a script for the team’s first four plays against rival Michigan. All four were wrecked. Two of them ended in turnovers. None of them resulted in points. It was only the beginning.
Spartans turnovers hand game to Wolverines Detroit News
The score was ugly enough as Michigan ended a five-game skid against Michigan State with an 86-57 blowout at Crisler Center that got out of hand early and was never a game from late in the first half. It matched Michigan State’s worst loss to Michigan in the Tom Izzo era, dating to a 75-46 loss on Feb. 27, 1996. But that was just the beginning.
Niyo: Izzo must hope Spartans learn from shoddy outing Detroit News
Tom Izzo called a timeout with 42 seconds left on the clock and his team trailing its archrival by nearly 30 points Tuesday night. Most of Michigan State’s starters were still in the game at that point, and they weren’t coming out just yet.
MSU notes: 21 turnovers hand Michigan 30 points in blowout loss Detroit Free Press
Cassius Winston lobbed a pass to Kenny Goins that sailed over his forward’s head out of bounds. A few minutes later, setting up for a final shot of an otherwise putrid first half, the Michigan State freshman point guard stepped out of bounds with 4.9 seconds left.
Talkin’ Spartans: Analyzing MSU’s 29-point loss at Michigan Detroit Free Press
Lansing State Journal sports columnist Graham Couch and Detroit Free Press / LSJ MSU beat writer Chris Solari break down the Spartans’ 86-57 loss in Ann Arbor Tuesday night
It’s been 1,081 days since the last time the University of Michigan Wolverines defeated MSU, a 79-70 win at the Crisler Center on Feb. 23, 2014. None of MSU’s current starting five have seen a defeat at the hands of the Wolverines, a streak that can continue until next season as the Spartans (14-9, 6-4 Big Ten) gear up to take on U-M (14-9, 4-6 Big Ten) Tuesday night.
It seems like just yesterday that these two teams played and, really, that’s not much of a stretch. Tonight, the Spartans and Wolverines will square off for the second time in less than two weeks, this time in Ann Arbor. Will the Spartans sweep the series or will Jon Beilein’s squad pull even?