College Football 2015: Michigan vs. Michigan State Preview

Michigan and Michigan State set for Giant Battle of Michigan

For the first time in the best part of a decade and maybe longer, we’re talking about the Wolverines being the dominant team in the state, rather than looking to East Lansing to find the Michigan team most likely to figure in the national championship contention. Ever since star Wolverine running back Mike Hart called the Spartans Michigan’s “little brother”, it’s been the green and white team dominating the series. It's been one-way traffic, in favour of Sparty.

Quicker than I expected, Jim Harbaugh has his Wolverines squad playing brilliantly in all three phases of the game. Their defence, porous as you like under previous head coaches Brady Hoke and Rich Rodriguez, is playing like they’re the 1985 Chicago Bears. They’re coming off three straight shut-out victories – including a last start 38-0 demolition of a pretty good Northwestern squad – and could not be getting the Spartans at a better time than this.

It’s fair to say that Michigan State haven’t done much to write home about this year. Their best win all season was a narrow one against Oregon at home, in which the Ducks came storming back in the final quarter to really make a game of it. When you consider that Oregon then went on to be belted by Utah and beaten by Washington State – yeah, it still feels strange to type that – what might have been a signature win a year or two ago has lost all its gloss in 2015.

Yet, the Spartans know how to win big games, and Michigan, of late, can’t claim the same. I’ll be very curious to see whether MSU has been coasting through these early-season games, and are just waiting to turn up the wick against their in-state rivals. It’s highly possible theory, though, if I were a Spartan fan (or a member of their coaching staff), I’d like to have seen a little more from my team heading into such a game.

They’ve had narrow, unimpressive wins against Air Force and Purdue of late, and barely escaped last week against a Rutgers squad who were playing without their suspended coach. For most of this season, Mark Dantonio’s squad has looked lacklustre and uninterested, neither of which bodes particularly well for Saturday in the Big House.

Michigan’s only loss was to the same Utah squad that destroyed Oregon in Eugene, and with the Utes at the pointy end of the AP Top 25 national rankings, it’s looking like a pretty good loss to have. They’ve gotten markedly better every week, and are very quickly turning into a dangerous team. They’ve had no problems running the football, and the defence has played lights-out ever since the Utah loss to open the season. I can’t wait to see how Michigan State QB Connor Cook deals (or, at least, tries to deal) with that Wolverine secondary, which is stacked with talent.

Harbaugh must surely be a red-hot contender for Coach of the Year. His work so far has been incredible – especially where tutelage of QB Jake Rudock is concerned. The Iowa transfer, once a turnover machine, is now as safe a signal-caller as there is in the nation. He can also move just enough to be a threat on the ground if the play breaks down. I must admit that I was critical of Rudock early in the year, but he’s transformed into a completely different quarterback. Thank Harbaugh for that. Actually, you can thank Jim Harbaugh for a heck of a lot at Ann Arbor these days.

This Saturday afternoon Big House clash is going to be a sensational event, and as much as we talk about records and play coming in, the fact of the matter is we’re talking about a rivalry game – the second-biggest for Michigan, and the biggest for MSU – and in grudge matches like this, form-guides tend to get tossed out the window when it comes to games like this.

It’s been a long time between drinks for the Wolverines, and there’s a popular belief that Harbaugh really needs to beat the Spartans to rubber-stamp his team’s return to a national stage. I’m already a believer – anyone who saw them take apart Northwestern last week probably is by now – but there are plenty who aren’t. Not yet, anyway. Saturday might change all of that.

Prediction: Michigan by a touchdown.