It’s Michigan-Michigan State rivalry week. And U-M football coach Jim Harbaugh helped kick it off by suggesting we could use a break from all the clichés that have been “plowed so thoroughly on both sides.”
I like what he did there. Use a cliché to ask for a break … from using cliches.
Actually, I don’t blame him for relying on a cliché. We all do. More than we’d like to admit. (See, that’s a cliché right there!)
And while I understand the sentiment from Harbaugh, and the tactic of saying as little as possible during his Monday news conference — Mark Dantonio said almost nothing during his news conference Tuesday, too; he even praised Harbaugh for coaching good sportsmanship — we use clichés for a reason.
Especially during rivalry week. Because they often speak to certain truths. Which means they are essential — and fun.
Clichés can also be slow to adapt to reality. Like this one: Ohio State is U-M's most important rival.
It is not. Michigan State is.
Now, maybe national college football stenographers prefer the gauzy, sepia-toned history of Michigan-Ohio State. Fine. It makes for compelling documentaries.
Yet that rivalry doesn’t stir the animosity and anxiety in Ann Arbor like Michigan-MSU does. Whatever history the Buckeyes offer as a storied opponent, their fans don’t live and work among the Wolverines like the Spartans do.
And it’s not simply a matter of geography. It’s a state of mind. Or, a state of identity.
The Michigan-MSU rivalry gives us classic themes and tropes. Yes, some are cliches. But many are rooted in the way we think about the two schools, fair or not:
Rural versus urban. Conservative versus liberal. Midwesterners versus east-coasters. Insiders versus outsiders. Vet medicine versus human medicine.
Part of what makes a college football rivalry different from other sporting rivalries is the power universities have in shaping not only our world view, but our interior view as well.
If you root for the Detroit Lions, that means you’ve either grown up in Michigan or grew up in a household where someone else did. Yes, it’s possible to have grown up in Missouri and loved Barry Sanders. But those fans are outliers.
Most fans love a professional team because of proximity. And while college football programs attract locals who didn‘t attend the school, associating with a university, whether through its classrooms or its football stadium, says something about who you are.
This is what makes college football rivalries so intense. Rooting for the Wolverines or Spartans, then, becomes a kind of political act. And sometimes even a religious one.
From the moment he took over as head coach, Dantonio embraced this aspect of the rivalry. His success in the game — he's 8-3 — has forced many in Ann Arbor to do the same.
For years, part of the fun of being a Wolverine was dismissing the Spartans. Ignoring them, really.
Well, that isn’t possible now, and that acknowledgement only makes this week more meaningful, and interesting.
“People used to get mad at me, our own fans and Ohio State fans, when I said that the MSU game was more important than Ohio State,” former U-M coach Gary Moeller once explained. “It’s like playing a family member or close friend — well, maybe not a friend, but someone you have to live by.”
That may have been heresy 30 years ago, but it’s hard to imagine Wolverine fans getting irked now. In fact, similar thoughts trickled out of Schembechler Hall this fall.
Here is what Devin Bush Jr, U-M's All-American linebacker, told WXYT-FM (97.1)’s “Jamie and Stoney Show” in September:
“I hate Michigan State … I don’t like Ohio State, either, but I just don’t like Michigan State. I don’t even want to touch their green.”
Good for him. Get it out in the open.
Just as his teammate, defensive end Chase Winovich, did a few weeks later.
“I don't like each one in different ways," he told the same radio show hosts. "Ohio State, it's weird. I think we have a better relationship with their players in a sense where it's strictly, almost like ideologies, it's Ohio State vs. Michigan and it's such a huge game. Whereas Michigan State, I think there's actual almost animosity between players. I think that's the biggest difference.”
Actual animosity?
Believe it.
Believe it, too, that this week’s game is one of the most heated in college football. Where two teams aren’t just jockeying for conference positioning and bragging rights but tussling over a representative clash of values.
As Bush said, he doesn’t want to so much as touch Spartan green. So what if few outside the state understand why?
It’s about time we’ve gotten to this point publicly. Because it has been that way privately in Ann Arbor for decades.
Finally, some are beginning to talk about it. Just not U-M's coach.
But then Harbaugh didn’t have to. Saying nothing says plenty, too.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.