Rivalries in college sports may not be as dead in the water as some of us thought.
Last weekend, Michigan State and Michigan played in their 107th meeting. Anybody who follows college football knows about the historic animosity between East Lansing and Ann Arbor that’s existed since their first game in 1898.
We’ve seen 18 different presidents, the invention of airplanes, two world wars, and the formation of 105 sovereign states since the two schools first played.
That leaves a lot of time for the two schools to develop a healthy hatred for each other.
And while today’s sports climate might suggest these rivalries would succumb to political correctness and a sort of taming of the general dislike between schools like these, that clearly isn’t the case.
Brady Hoke’s Wolverines marched into East Lansing last Saturday and did something pretty disrespectful, although hilarious, in the face of the No. 8 Michigan State squad in its own stadium.
They literally drove a stake into Michigan State’s field like it was a character in Twilight.
It’s funny on multiple fronts, not the least of which is the fact that Michigan State is clearly the more talented team at 7-1, with Michigan struggling at 3-5.
Michigan State Coach Mark Dantonio had the last laugh, though, calling for a final touchdown with 28 seconds to go and the team already up 17 points.
“I just felt like we needed to put a stake in them at that point,” Dantonio said.
Got ‘em.
But in reality, the fact that rivalries like this still exist in the increasingly business-oriented stage of college sports is encouraging. Recent conference re-alignment has ended some of the most historically significant rivalries.
Rivalries such as Kansas vs. Missouri (120 meetings), Texas vs. Texas A&M (118), Nebraska vs. Oklahoma and Michigan vs. Notre Dame have all fallen by the wayside.
But even current rivalries have lost some of their luster.
IU vs. Purdue has become an annual snooze-fest and an exhibition in futility when it comes to football, with neither team sustaining much national competitiveness for the better part of 15 years.
Even in basketball, IU against Purdue hasn’t been a game worth watching since most of us have been undergrads — the last time one was decided by five points or less came on February 4, 2010, in a three-point Purdue victory.
Rivalries like these are cyclical, and it’s hard to find a time when any two teams are equally competitive in a sport — much less when they’re historically bitter rivals.
And even in a time when money usually wins out over history, teams find a way to hate each other for the sake of tradition and tradition alone.
So it’s refreshing when teams like Michigan State and Michigan trade not-so-friendly jabs at each other, even when one team is clearly better than the other and the latter doesn’t have much — other than pride — to play for.
Here’s to hoping that’s one thing that never changes.
aknorth@indiana.edu
