Bad Betting Advice, 2025 Week Nine: Civil War
Can the Spartans win enough battles on Saturday to win the war against the Wolverines?
In a world fraught with conflict and uncertainty, two proud football teams will meet on the gridiron Saturday night to decide which university will once again get bragging rights for the next 12 months.
The winner will get a cool wooden statue of a lumberjack named Paul Bunyan. The coach of the winning team will also get to enjoy a full week of not getting asked if he is getting fired. Probably.
That's right. It's Michigan Week. That special time every fall in the Great Lakes State that pits neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, green versus blue, Michigan State Spartans versus Michigan Wolverines. It's an all-out civil war.
But this year both teams find themselves dealing with different kinds of adversity. The Spartans (3-4) are struggling with their identity in the midst of a four-game losing streak and a three-year streak with no bowl game.
Meanwhile, the Wolverines' (5-2) unrealistic dreams for a Big Ten title and playoff berth are fading. Michigan continues to grapple with the challenges of remaining relevant on the national stage when it no longer knows which play its opponent is going to run every time.
The Spartans are also looking to avenge a streak of three-straight losses in the series. But this year's matchup with the Wolverines is far from a battle between Captain America and Iron Man. It's more like U.S. Agent versus Red Guardian.
The main difference being that in this case Red Guardian is entitled, older, bald, less witty, more arrogant, and has a poor sense of fashion. Maize and Blue Guardian's only superpower is a severe case of undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder combined with poor personal hygiene.
The stakes in this year's football contest are lower than most years. But embattled Spartan head coach Jonathan Smith will have an opportunity on Saturday for a signature win over his new team's biggest rival.
It is an opportunity to show that Smith learned from last year and now understands the nature of this rivalry. It is an opportunity for him and his team to demonstrate a certain level of grit, energy, intensity and focus that have been lacking far too often this year.
Smith and his players need to embrace and take advantage of this opportunity.
Fortunately, Jonathan Smith knows a little something about "Civil War." In addition to it being the name of a mid Marvel film, it is also the common nickname of the annual football game between the University of Oregon Ducks and Oregon State University Beavers, Smith's alma mater and previous employer.
Smith faced the Ducks a total of four times as a player, twice as a graduate assistant, and six times as the head coach of the Beavers. Smith beat Oregon twice as a player, once as a graduate assistant, and twice as a head coach for an overall record of 5-7.
Four of those five wins came against an Oregon team ranked in the top-15 nationally and all five occurred at home. Oregon State was an underdog in three of the five wins, including a win as a nine-point underdog in Smith's freshman year of 1998 and as a 13-point underdog as the head coach in 2020. Smith achieved all this despite never securing a recruiting class ranked in the top-50.
There are several parallels between the Michigan/Michigan State rivalry and the Oregon/Oregon State rivalry. They are considered to be two of the more intense and, dare I say, uncivilized rivalries in the country. Oregon State is the original land-grant in the state and was once even named Oregon Agricultural College.
Smith is still new to the Midwest and new to the state of Michigan, but he should be familiar with the type of archvillain that he faces in this new rivalry. It is a villain that he has defeated before. The setting may have changed, but the beats of the plot are very much the same.
Smith has the experience and the tools to compete in this rivalry at Michigan State. The plot of Saturday's game is sure to contain some twists and turns. Will new heroes rise and breathe life into the franchise? Or will the bad guys win again leaving many Spartans asking for the director to give up his chair? Make sure to stay to the final credits to see how the story ends, or to at least get a hint of the next installment in the series.
Michigan State Prediction
The Michigan State/Michigan rivalry goes back to 1898 and includes a total of 117 matches. The Wolverines dominated the early portion of the rivalry. Michigan won 33 of the first 42 games between 1898 and 1949. The Wolverines were even kind enough to allow five of those contests to be played in East Lansing.
But the rivalry experienced a major power shift when Michigan State because an official member of the Big Ten conference in 1950. The new kid on the block racked up 14 wins and two ties against Michigan in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Wolverines would strike back in the 1970s and proceeded to dominate the series over the next 40 years. The Spartans only won eight games in the series between 1970 and 2007. But starting in 2008, then-head coach Mark Dantonio put the Wolverines back into their place by winning 10 of the next 14 games.
Since 1950, Michigan leads the series 41-32-2. Notably, the Spartans' 32 wins since 1950 is equal to the total number of wins Michigan has over Ohio State in the same period.
The good news for Michigan fans is that the Spartans are struggling. Since 1950, the Wolverines have an embarrassing 2-18 record against the Spartans in seasons where Michigan State wins over 70% of the other games on the schedule. Despite claims that Michigan State only beats Michigan when the Wolverines are down, the exact opposite scenario is the one that is true.
We expect nothing less from a school with a mascot that pretends to be fierce, but which in reality is a scavenger and carrion eating member of the weasel family with nicknames that refer to both skunks and those who eat too much.
Since the Wolverines handed the Spartans their only loss in the 1955 season, the best win for Michigan over the Spartans in the ensuing 70 years was in 1989 when the Green and White went 8-4 and head coach George Perles led Michigan State to an exciting win in the Aloha Bowl. Impressive!
As for this year's contest, Michigan opened as a 13-point favorite on the road, which corresponds to an 18% chance that the Spartans will be able to reclaim the Paul Bunyan Trophy.
Historically, this spread is in an odd range for games in the series played in Spartan Stadium. Over the past 30 years or so where spread data is generally available, Michigan State is rarely more than a touchdown underdog at home against Michigan. The only exceptions were the 2016 season (+20) and the 2023 season (+24) where the wheels had long detached from the Green and White bus.
The most notable recent Spartan upset wins over Michigan in East Lansing came in 2001 (+6) and 2021 (+4). An upset win this year would make it one of the biggest home upsets in series history. Beyond just the series with Michigan, the Spartans are 0-9 in Spartan Stadium since 2001 in games where the spread opened over 10 points. Perhaps Michigan State is due for a big win.
Michigan State has been between a 12 and 15.5-point underdog in Ann Arbor four times since 2002. The Spartans did earn one upset win in this span. MSU (+12) beat U-M the rain-soaked game in 2017.
My computer foresees an outcome that this very similar to what the oddsmakers in Las Vegas are saying. My official prediction is Michigan 34, Michigan State 19. That said, I can imagine a path to victory for the Green and White.
Michigan is coming off its biggest win of the year over a solid Washington team. Michigan State is coming off the biggest loss of the season at top-three-ranked Indiana. The Wolverines are likely feel pretty good about themselves. Maybe they are feeling a bit too good.
At the same time, the Spartans may be starting to feel a bit sorry for themselves after losing four-straight games. But there are few situations in sports that are more effective in converting frustration into a focused resolution than playing a bitter rival.
To this end, Michigan State is going to need to harness the energy of the rivalry and play a brand of football that is sharper and more focused than what we have seen since the opening game against Western Michigan. That means minimizing blown coverages, missed tackles and bad routes.
The Spartans must find a way to limit the Wolverines' explosive running game. Running back Justice Haynes has had a great season so far for Michigan, but he is coming off an injury that prevented him from playing last week against Washington. Haynes has the potential to take the ball to the house every time he touches it. Michigan State needs to make sure that doesn't happen.
Michigan State needs to confuse and frustrate talented but young quarterback Bryce Underwood. This will be Underwood's first taste of the rivalry in person. There is a chance that the moment will be bigger than what he is ready for at this phase of his development.
So far this season, Michigan is plus-9 in turnover margin, while Michigan State is minus-3. The Spartans need to find a way to turn this luck around. If Michigan State can be plus-1 or plus-2 on turnovers, the probability of an upset increase dramatically.
If the Spartans can do these things, Michigan's ability to score points will be limited. From there, MSU quarterback Aidan Chiles needs to play like the best version of himself. He needs to move the ball with both his arms and his legs, and he needs to avoid the big mistake. Chiles was very good in Bloomington last weekend against a much better opponent. That is the version of Chiles that the Spartans will need against Michigan.
The Michigan State run game has struggled over the past few weeks. The Spartans need to find their footing in this area and at least be serviceable. Chiles cannot be expected to carry the full load of the offense by himself. The Green and White may need a surprise performance like the one running back Nathan Carter gave in Ann Arbor last fall.
Finally, outside of the gaffes against Nebraska, specials teams have been a secret superpower for the Spartans all year. It needs to be again on Saturday.
Michigan State likely will not be able to win all of the battles mentioned above. But if the Spartans can find a way to win a majority of those battles, it is likely that they can win the war.
