This is an excerpt from OVERTIME: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football (HarperCollins, 2019)

THERE HAS BEEN enough adolescent sniping between Michigan and Michigan State to fill a book— in fact, several. 

It started before Michigan Agricultural College opened its doors in 1855. After the University of Michigan lost its bid to start the new agricultural college in Ann Arbor, a Michigan professor warned the new school “cannot be more than a fifth- rate affair.”

Let’s be clear: Michigan State is not merely a good school, but a world- class research university. It’s one of only 62 in North America to be admitted to the Association of American Universities, the highest status a research university can achieve.

Nonetheless, Michigan athletic director Fritz Crisler followed up a century later by actively lobbying to block Michigan State from joining the Big Nine, as it was called after Crisler’s alma mater, Chicago, had dropped out. When that failed the Wolverines publicly pledged that if they won the new Paul Bunyan Trophy, they would leave it on the field. No matter: Michigan lost, 14–6.

In 1973, after Michigan and Ohio State tied 10–10 to finish with identical 10-0-1 records, the league left its Rose Bowl invitation up to a vote of the athletic directors. When Michigan State’s Bert Smith explained why he cast the likely deciding vote against their sister school at a Spartan banquet, he received thunderous applause.

After a relatively calm period, the pettiness between the programs picked up in the past decade. When Appalachian State stunned the Wolverines in 2007, Mark Dantonio sarcastically asked for “a moment of silence.” Michigan’s Mike Hart returned the favor by referring to the Spartans as “Little Brother.”

In 2013, former Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon hired a skywriter to spell “GO BLUE” over East Lansing— then lied about it, until records proved his department had paid for it. Before the Michigan State game that year a couple dozen Michigan players made a show of plunging a big tent spike into the Spartans’ field— only to get crushed, 35–11, and prompt Coach Hoke to apologize the next day.

If you added up all the slights and cheap shots they would probably shake out about even— though the final tally would likely depend on who was doing the adding.

Michigan football has three main rivalries and they all function differently, starting with reputations— including Michigan’s. While Michigan’s rivals often consider Michigan fans arrogant— as one former MSU coach said, “AA doesn’t stand for Ann Arbor, but Arrogant Asses”— they’re not typically violent or rude. Rival fans who go out on the town after beating Michigan, from Appalachian State to Penn State, are generally well received.

With the Notre Dame rivalry, the fans on both sides are respectful, and so are the players. With Ohio State, the players are respectful—many of their lettermen are among the finest men I’ve met, from John Hicks to Tom Skladany to Archie Griffin— while a portion of their fans are considered among the worst in college football.

With Michigan State the fans are generally respectful toward each other, with Spartan fans among the friendliest in the country. Almost everyone in the state has friends who went to both schools, creating a week of harmless ribbing between them.

But the respect stops with the spectators. The players have harbored a genuine hate for each other going back at least to 1953—a noted contrast to the mutual respect between the schools’ basketball coaches and players. Michigan football players, past and present, consistently report no one hits them harder, later, or cheaper. They’ll tell you the Spartans’ trash talk is constant, and when the play ends, the extracurriculars start, including spitting, scratching, and punching where it hurts most.

Perhaps the most egregious example in recent memory was a play that occurred during the 2011 game in East Lansing. After four Spartans gang-tackled Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson at midfield, leaving him facedown and immobilized, William Gholston jumped on the pile, which marked one offense, however common. But then he grabbed Robinson’s face mask from behind with both hands and twisted it as hard as he could, torqueing it more than ninety degrees, in an apparent attempt to break his neck.

It was the most grotesque act I’ve ever seen on a football field. Fortunately Robinson was not injured, despite Gholston’s best efforts. When the normally mild- mannered Robinson got up, he turned to the refs, arms outstretched, outraged. Gholston would later be suspended by the Big Ten for one game— not for twisting Robinson’s helmet, but for punching Michigan offensive tackle Taylor Lewan later in the game, a violation that was more obvious than it was dangerous.

After the game, then– MSU defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi said, “That’s what we try to do. 60 minutes of ‘Unnecessary roughness.’ I’m just happy it didn’t get called on every snap.”

Later that week the Wall Street Journal ranked the dirtiest college football rivalries, as determined by personal fouls. While the Michigan–Michigan State rivalry ranked only sixth, it was also the most lopsided, with MSU being called for 80 percent of the personal fouls between them over the preceding five seasons.

Grant Newsome’s father, Leon, who played at Princeton, was struck before the 2018 game in East Lansing by the easy camaraderie between Michigan and Michigan State fans. “You see them all tailgating together— no fights, no yelling— something you’d never see at Ohio State. But then the game starts, and on the field you can feel it— the animosity between the teams, the hate. The contrast between the fans and the players was stark.”