It's Time to Hate Your Neighbor: The Michigan State Preview

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I can't remember it ever being this quiet. Not ever. Michigan State can be grateful to the Detroit Tigers from taking the focus off of them this week. It has reached a point where I am not sure how to make fun of them anymore. It's really no longer funny. It is truly tragic.

Why hate State? I can think of a million reasons. But let's just start with how they've disgraced themselves and their University this season:

  • Started Stanton for Heisman campaign

  • Blew 17-point 4th quarter lead to Notre Dame. Highlights included a kick returner taking a knee at the 12-yard line.

  • Started "Guard Duty" on the 'S' on the 50-yard line. A move designed to thwart attacks from opposing teams trying to perform the "flag plant" that Michigan State innovated last season at Notre Dame.

  • Fell to the Fighting Illini on a last second field goal 23-20. Illinois was 26-point underdogs, and hadn't won a Big Ten game since 2004.

  • Started a post game melee with Illinois via the aforementioned "Guard Duty," bringing all the class of Florida State-Miami to East Lansing.

  • Coach John L. Smith praised the post game fight, and basically called for flag planting to be instated as spoils of victory. Then he slapped himself in the face. You can't make this shit up.

For me it's a lifetime of green-and-white-wearing idiots and their unbelievable flip-flopping superiority-to-inferiority complexes. It's their gorilla math and reasoning that made them think they were better than us because they were able to beat Notre Dame more often than us the past few seasons. It's their immediate default to "basketball season" after the Michigan game. And when things are going really bad (like this year) they get condescending. No doubt you are going to hear some version of "You guys are going to kill us this year" or "I hope you guys kill us so we can get rid of John L" or "Midnight madness is right around the corner." But don't be swayed, Sparty still feels pain on Michigan-Michigan State Saturday. This year will just send them deeper into the abyss of misery.

The College:

  • Enrollment: 45,166

  • Mascot: Sparty

  • Famous for pioneering degrees in packaging and music therapy.

Famous Alumni:

The Numbers:

  • Michigan is 65-28-5 all-time against Michigan State, including 8-2 in the last 10, winning the last four in a row

  • Michigan State boasts the nation's 9th ranked rushing offense

  • Chad Henne needs only 228 yards to move into 2nd place all-time in passing yardage at Michigan.

  • This will be the 99th meeting between Michigan and Michigan State

Who to watch:

  • Drew Stanton, QB
    • You might want to get there early to see this guy. He's got a cannon, and he can take off running at any time... but look for Lamarr to finish separating the meat clinging to his ribs sometime in the first quarter. Is Dowdell available?

More Reasons to hate Sparty:

  • Their giant, horribly designed, grotesquely separated campus

  • Johnny Spirit

  • 2001

  • The angry and elf-like Tom Izzo

  • Their ambiguously gay mascot

Fun Facts