Look at us, Who woulda thought?

Not me . . .

If there was a depiction of both Power 5 programs in the state of Michigan this season, it could be solely summed up by Paul Rudd’s appearance on Hot Ones. Both teams after pretty lackluster showings on either side of the ball in 2020 have managed to surprise . . . well, everyone. Jim Harbaugh has had the season that Wolverine fans have been yearning for since being hired almost 7 years ago, finally getting a win over OSU and has secured a coveted playoff spot. Mel Tucker on the other hand has defied expectations and put the Spartan faithful in a near fever dream, taking a program expected to be horrible to a NY6 birth and defeating their in state rival for the second time in just his second season.

A note of forewarning

This is my take on both programs through a pretty objective lens. If you have a problem with a take comment, on it, if you’re going to cry about something you don’t like for the sake of having the mental fragility of an infant, you should seek help.

Starting from the bottom

I’m not going to come out and say that the 2020 season doesn’t count (it does) but it was far from indicative of either of these programs potentials. Primarily due to roster turnovers and or 2020 opt outs.

Michigan State’s offensive line had lost starter Jordan Reid and had a number of recruits who’d committed to Dantonio that failed to see the field or opted out (Julian Barnett and Devonte Dobbs both transferred to Memphis). This resulted in MSU having a carousel at a couple positions and making some personnel changes to accommodate.

Michigan had lost WR Nico Collins and CB Ambry Thomas who opted out in favor of getting ready for the draft while their other Notable was potential starter Dylan McCaffrey who opted out and transferred leaving questions about the QB room with Milton at the helm (for a short time).

Both fan bases finished the season with mixed emotions. Wolverine fans flustered with how a program in year 6 could be struggling so much, and Spartans who aside from wins against the Wolverines and other Division champ Northwestern were blown out in several games.

Fast Forward to fall of 2021

I’m not here to do a massive breakdown of every change these programs had gone through but I will hit the main points as well.

Michigan finally fired Don Brown, namely after letting a MAC caliber QB throw for 3 TDs, 300 yards and a freshman receiver to earn 196 yards and 1 TD in a game where the Wolverines were a 21.5 point favorite. This was a long time coming as Brown’s defense seemed to regress after 2016 (namely against teams with competent QB play) and Harbaugh made a home run hire with Mike Macdonald to completely flip how offenses would earn their yards against the Wolverines. On offense, Cade would be named the QB and be asked to primarily be a game manager instead of trying to over extend and risk turning the ball over, and a backfield of Corum and Haskins would be gifted a tremendous O-Line to pair up with good receiver play (unfortunately Ronnie Bell would have a season ending injury early in the year).

Michigan State would spend some time in the transfer portal filling in the gaps they couldn’t fill with recruiting, as pandemic protocols made it near impossible to recruit on campus. With standout transfers including RB Kenneth Walker III of Wake Forrest, LB Quavaris Crouch of Tennessee, and OT Jarrett Horst of Arkansas State, MSU looked to be as competitive as quickly as possible. With Sophomore Payton Thorne earning the starting nod, and Juniors Jalen Nailor and Jayden Reed rounding out the WR 1 & 2 positions MSU looked to have a comfortable offense going. The staff largely unchanged at the coordinator spots, MSU managed to retain DL coach Ron Burton from leaving to Indiana and the remaining position coaches from the Dantonio era seemed to be on their way out.

Via a number of publications, nationally and locally, both were projected to be underwhelming. Michigan was seen as a 7–8 win team by some oddsmakers despite skepticism of the new DC and offense ranking them around 4th-5th in the conference (at the time behind OSU, Wisconsin, PSU, and tied with Indiana) while MSU was projected as a 4–5 win team projecting them as the 2nd worst in the division, and 12 ranked team in the conference ahead of Illinois and Rutgers. Not a whole lot of love by pollsters for the Mitten teams going into the season.

Fast forward to THAT week

Both teams find themselves in a historic top 10 matchup that if you mentioned a couple of months ago (hell even a year ago) you’d probably be asked if you were on drugs. Something that nobody would’ve dreamt either of those teams would be at that point in the season.

Hindsight being 20/20, the game would jump one of them to the lead of the B1G standings at the time. For Michigan, it was redemption for a year ago , and for MSU, an opportunity to wow recruits and help continue a season MSU wasn’t even potentially close to having for another 3–4 seasons with Tucker at the helm.

It was the liveliest I’d seen East Lansing since the Oregon game in 2015. It cost an arm and a leg to take an Uber 2 miles and parking was near impossible. The weather was classic late October weather where it was damp and misty, and if a majority of teams were to come and play a late season game in the Midwest “upset” would be used a lot more often.

The sum total was one of if not the most entertaining football games I’d seen this season from start to finish. Big play on the ground, in the air and defensively.

I’m not going to sit and act like the game didn’t have a a few poor officiating calls because I don’t care, it goes both ways of Hutchinson potentially having a what would be +4 point swing to tie the game later on, or Walker being put in a chokehold. If you’re going to play the that card, think of it like this: If a team blows a 16 point lead in any sport and complains about officiating, regardless of the team it was against, you’d laugh yourself into stitches (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t). If you relying on 1 play in a game of nearly 150 you didn’t do enough to win, plain and simple. There’s no reason to lose sleep especially with how the season has turned out but if you’re going to let it live rent free in your head so be it.

MSU goes on to lose games to Purdue and OSU who took advantage of the Spartans dead last in America pass defense (exacerbated in part to injuries sustained against Michigan and the lack of depth) but manage to beat the Terrapins, and in a winter wonderland pull out a win against Penn State to finish the regular season 10–2 and a NY6 birth. Nobody saw that coming.

Michigan would pull off something very akin to MSU circa 2015 in a “If you win, you’re in” sense. The Wolverines for the first time in Harbaughs tenure gelled for the last game of the regular season to climb the mountain, and in front of a crowd who’s taken in on the chin for a decade, they finally get to dish it out. Grinding out slow play from Iowa the Wolverines beat Iowa to claim the conference crown (and for those who don’t know, both teams were fighting for their first conference title since 2004 when both had tied that season).

Now in preparation for their respective battles with Georgia in the Orange Bowl Semi-Final, and Pittsburgh in the Peach Bowl the paths branch off into a number of possibilities.

Time to draw a map

There’s a pretty obvious best scenario for both teams here. Michigan could win a national championship and MSU could finish with a NY6 win and a 11–2 record with both teams having nearly double their projected win totals. Something if you told someone coming out of a coma after last season they’d think you were joking. But a few matters will remain the same spurring more interest.

The Big 10 East will continue to be a gauntlet, suggesting a potential realignment. Since the Leaders and Legends became the East and West, the East is 8–0 with OSU, MSU and now Michigan as the only 3 to make the playoff. The state of Michigan becoming more competitive ironically makes the pickings more scarce, as both schools try to maintain in state recruiting as OSU, Penn State, Alabama, LSU and Wisconsin continue to try their hand at recruiting here. MSU still has some time to develop and recruit to see what their ceiling will be (again this was only Tuckers first full year of recruiting), but Michigan’s big question is to see if they can continue to compete at this level and sustain it without a massive fall off.

CFB has become an arms race, and having longer tenured coaches that don’t go in and out of the carousel every 3 years due to reactionary fans(and AD’s) provides a more consistent and enjoyable ambiance that you can’t get anywhere else.