Being a Michigan fan means simultaneously having to deal with two traits that rarely exist in combination: A curious mind that can’t just be satisfied with the simple explanations it wants to hear, and a football mind that can’t just be satisfied with a mere 10 Saturdays per year that end with a football win. Fortunately this cursed population also produces chroniclers of our shared obsession that no other sports fanbase could dream of. John U. Bacon is an author from the shrinking top echelon of authors. He writes books about Michigan football. He has another.

This excerpt is derived from Chapter 28, “Bad Blood,” and Chapter 29, “Calvary’s Coming,” in John U. Bacon’s latest book, OVERTIME: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football, which comes out September 3, the same day he will appear at Hill Auditorium at 7 p.m. to give a talk, answer question, and sign books. He'll also be joining us this Friday at the Bo Store/MGoRadio to talk about his latest Michigan novel. It covers the Michigan State game and its immediate aftermath. Every other excerpting outlet asked for this section too, but as it happens Bacon is one of us.

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[After THE JUMP]

CHAPTER 28 BAD BLOOD

ON FRIDAY NIGHT, October 19, 2018, in the banquet room at the Ramada hotel in Lansing, Michigan, a couple hundred yards from the state capitol, the subject was not politics but football.

When Jim Harbaugh stood up to address his team, the stakes barely had to be mentioned: The Wolverines, now 6-1 overall and 4-0 in the Big Ten, had a clear shot at a Big Ten title—and with it, a likely berth in the College Football Playoffs. What fans feared was going to be another throw away season five weeks earlier was suddenly inflated with great expectations.

For the players the State game was personal, brimming with intangible benefits that couldn’t be quantified in an AP ranking, including the bye week that would follow. These could cut both ways.

If you lost to MSU right before the bye week, as Michigan did in 2015, you had to answer questions about it for two weeks before you had a chance to redeem yourself and change the subject. But if you won, you could bask in a big victory while taking a few days off for the first time since July.

Then there were bragging rights. Since fifth-year seniors like Jared Wangler, Chase Winovich, and Noah Furbush had beaten the Spartans only once in four tries, the last thing they wanted to hear about the rest of their lives was how the Spartans dominated their teams.

Since 1953, when Michigan State started playing in the Big Ten, the winner of this contest has been awarded the Paul Bunyan trophy, which Lloyd Carr described as the “ugliest trophy in college football. But when you don’t have it, you miss it.”

Mark Dantonio had already established himself as one of Michigan State’s greatest coaches, with three division titles, three conference crowns, and even an appearance in the new four-team national playoff— prizes no current Wolverine had ever claimed. Dantonio had also raised upsetting the Wolverines to an art form. After the Wolverines had taken Paul Bunyan home in 30 of 38 games played between 1970 and 2007, Mark Dantonio’s teams won eight of the next ten— something even MSU’s national champion coaches Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty never did— despite being favored to win only four of those contests.

In the 2018 Spartans’ first five games they suffered bad losses against Arizona State and Northwestern, while notching three unimpressive victories over weak teams. The week before the Michigan game they traveled to Penn State, one of the nation’s toughest places to play, looking for a miracle against the eighth-ranked Nittany Lions, which had turned a 26–14 fourth quarter lead over undefeated Ohio State into a 27–26 loss previous week.

The Spartans pulled off a 21–17 upset, slipping back inside the top 25 at #24. That was important because it presented the Wolverines another chance to break their ignominious 17-game losing streak against ranked opponents on the road— a fact that seemed to run on ESPN every half hour.

But all that would be eclipsed by whatever happened the next day, the 111th meeting between these sibling rivals.

THERE HAS BEEN enough adolescent sniping between Michigan and Michigan State to fill a book— in fact, several. It started before Michigan Agricultural College opened its doors in 1855. After the University of Michigan lost its bid to start the new agricultural college in Ann Arbor, a Michigan professor warned the new school “cannot be more than a fifth-rate affair.”

Despite the professor’s warning, Michigan State became not merely a good school, but a world-class research university. It’s one of only 62 in North America to be admitted to the Association of American Universities (AAU), the highest status a research university can achieve. MSU owes much of it’s current stature to a remarkable president, John Hannah (1941-69), who grew State’s enrollment from 6,000 before World War II to 40,000 before he retired, got the University admitted to the Big Ten, and the AAU.

Michigan athletic director Fritz Crisler didn’t care about any of that, actively lobbying to block Michigan State from joining the Big Nine, as it was called after Crisler’s alma mater, Chicago, had dropped out. When that failed the Wolverines publicly pledged that if they won the new Paul Bunyan Trophy, they would leave it on the field. No matter: Michigan lost, 14–6.

In 1973, after Michigan and Ohio State tied 10–10 to finish with identical 10-0-1 records, the league left its Rose Bowl invitation up to a vote of the athletic directors. When Michigan State’s Bert Smith explained why he cast the likely deciding vote against their sister school at a Spartan banquet, he received thunderous applause.

After a relatively calm period, the pettiness between the programs picked up in the past decade. When Appalachian State stunned the Wolverines in 2007, Mark Dantonio sarcastically asked for “a moment of silence.” Michigan’s Mike Hart returned the favor by referring to the Spartans as “Little Brother.”

In 2013, former Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon hired a skywriter to spell “GO BLUE” over East Lansing— then lied about it, until records proved his department had paid for it. Before the Michigan State game that year a couple dozen Michigan players made a show of plunging a big tent spike into the Spartans’ field— only to get crushed, 35–11, and prompt Coach Hoke to apologize the next day.

If you added up all the slights and cheap shots they would probably shake out about even— though the final tally would likely depend on who was doing the adding.

Michigan football has three main rivalries and they all function differently, starting with reputations— including Michigan’s. While Michigan’s rivals often consider Michigan fans arrogant— as one former MSU coach said, “AA doesn’t stand for Ann Arbor, but Arrogant Asses”— they’re not typically violent or rude. Rival fans who go out on the town after beating Michigan, from Appalachian State to Penn State, are generally well received.

With the Notre Dame rivalry, the fans on both sides are respectful, and so are the players. With Ohio State, the players are respectful— many of their lettermen are among the finest men I’ve met, from John Hicks to Tom Skladany to Archie Griffin— while a portion of their fans are considered among the worst in college football.

With Michigan State the fans are generally respectful toward each other, with Spartan fans among the friendliest in the country. Almost everyone in the state has friends who went to both schools, creating a week of harmless ribbing between them.

They asked, and now Paul’s on the field. [Patrick Barron]

But the respect stops with the spectators. The players have harbored a genuine hate for each other going back at least to 1953—a noted contrast to the mutual respect between the schools’ basketball coaches and players. Michigan football players, past and present, consistently report no one hits them harder, later, or cheaper. They’ll tell you the Spartans’ trash talk is constant, and when the play ends, the extracurriculars start, including spitting, scratching, and punching where it hurts most.

After the 2011 game in East Lansing, which witnessed the Spartans’ William Gholston twisting Denard Robinson’s face mask from behind with both hands after the whistle. Gholston would later be suspended by the Big Ten for one game— not for twisting Robinson’s helmet, but for punching Michigan offensive tackle Taylor Lewan later in the game, a violation that was more obvious than it was dangerous.

After the game, then–MSU defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi said, “That’s what we try to do. 60 minutes of ‘Unnecessary roughness.’ I’m just happy it didn’t get called on every snap.”

Later that week the Wall Street Journal ranked the dirtiest college football rivalries, as determined by personal fouls. While the Michigan–Michigan State rivalry ranked only sixth, it was also the most lopsided, with MSU being called for 80 percent of the personal fouls between them over the preceding five seasons.

Grant Newsome’s father, Leon, who played at Princeton, was struck before the 2018 game in East Lansing by the easy camaraderie between Michigan and Michigan State fans.

“You see them all tailgating together— no fights, no yelling— something you’d never see at Ohio State. But then the game starts, and on the field you can feel it— the animosity between the teams, the hate. The contrast between the fans and the players was stark.”

Grant added, “This year we realized, it is okay to hate this team. They’re not interested in playing us on a sporting level. They want to hurt you. That’s what their season is about. Well, this year we showed up ready to respond.”

During Michigan’s Monday team meeting, which sets the tone for the rest of the week, Harbaugh addressed these issues directly.

Harbaugh grew up hearing his dad’s stories about the Michigan State games; Jim had started three games at quarterback against the Spartans, breaking his arm in the first; and he’d already coached against them three times, two of them heartbreaking upsets. He knew more than enough about this rivalry to speak without euphemism to his players during Michigan’s Monday team meeting, which sets the tone for the rest of the week.

“I don’t think I need to tell you much about this game,” he said. “It’s Michigan State week, and we know what that means. We know what’s at stake. We want what’s ours. We’re coming for everything.”

“The look on Coach Harbaugh’s face during that meeting, you don’t forget,” Shea Patterson told me. “You could see and feel how much he was pissed off and how much he wanted this one. He said we usually we take the high road. Well, this week we’re taking the low road. But we’re going to take it on game day. Let them talk their shit to the media all week, and we’ll talk ours on the field.”

Harbaugh then told his team that, for the first time in the trophy’s 65-year history, if the Wolverines won it back Saturday they would take Paul off his stand and march him onto the Spartans’ field, as the Spartans had started doing in Ann Arbor in 2008.

He then added a warning: “For you guys who’ve played in this game, you know what it’s all about, you know what it’s going to take, and you know what’s going to happen. So after the play ends, you need to remember it’s not over. If you’re in the pile, you’re going to get it. If you’re standing near the pile, you’re going to get it. So be ready, be smart, be tough, and play to the ‘echo of the whistle.’ And bring Paul back where he belongs!”

Harbaugh had lit a fire— then doused gasoline on it Friday night at the hotel.

“Coach is not a big rah rah speaker,” Winovich told me, “but that inspired us. I was ready to go! This is always a scrappy game, which is great for me. I’m a scrappy player. I’ll outscrap anyone. You want to go there, I’ll go there.

“It always seems like we try to take this moral high ground. But the way I took it is, okay, this time we’re going to roll our sleeves up and get a little dirty. This is going to be a fight— so we’re going to fight.

“They want to stay on that low road? Let’s take a little visit! We’re not going to spend a lot of time down there. Ultimately that’s not who we are, but given the circumstances, we have to respond differently. If you don’t want us to go there, don’t pull all the antics you pull. You wanna start this? Fine, we’ll finish it. That’s the way we were feeling as a team.”

After Winovich had publicly declared the Wolverines’ “Revenge Tour” had officially commenced minutes after the Wisconsin game, at least a dozen teammates told him they supported everything he’d said.

“And that’s how I feel,” he said. “It wasn’t for effect. My objective isn’t just to beat State. My objective is to take the low road and kick their ass. I genuinely want to embarrass State. I want to run the score up on them.

“Wisconsin, I’ve got respect for those guys. Old-school football— nothing extra, no talking. Penn State, same thing. But Michigan State plays you differently. They push you in the back, push you after the whistle, they’ll say a lot of derogatory things, they’ll flop for a flag. Playing them is a completely different beast than any other team in college football. I’ve never played another team like them. If you get afraid to play this game, you’re in trouble. “You have to strike a balance between not getting distracted from playing your game, and not backing down. And I think we’ve got that.

“The mood is good. Our confidence is in full swing. It’s a fine line, because sometimes a win can hurt you more than a loss, if you let it go to your head. But I don’t feel that way this time. We’re not complacent, we’re hungry.

“This year we’re not going to give anybody anything.”

CHAPTER 29 “CAVALRY’S COMING”

The Spartan players and coaches receive a warning after jeering at an injured Devin Bush while trainers are trying to talk to him. [Barron]

AS KICK- OFF APPROACHED, the atmosphere in the visitors’ locker room at Spartan Stadium had a hissing intensity, like a fuse burning its way to the bomb.

Since the Brandon-Hoke era ended, the Wolverines had wisely refused to roust the Spartans with silly stunts like skywriting and stake planting. The Wolverines didn’t need any extra gunpowder to get ready for this game, but the Spartans decided to give them some anyway.

[OVERTIME describes the lead up to the game that day – including the confrontation between the Spartans and Devin Bush Jr. -- and the game itself, all from exclusive interviews with the players themselves, for the next nine pages, before delving into this final section on the game day.]

“THAT WAS PROBABLY the best win I’ve ever had since I’ve been here,” said Bush. “Big rival, plus the incident, and in their house. They started it. We finished it.”

After the game ended the Wolverines retrieved Paul Bunyan and celebrated with him on the field for the first time, with a large group of fans cheering them on.

“Taking Paul out on the field— I liked it,” said the normally reserved Furbush. “We were talking about taking the low road this time. I was all for it. Coach Dantonio once said ‘Pride comes before the fall.’ There you go. Felt real good to watch all their hopes and dreams burn. It turns out I can be a vengeful guy, so that was a lot of fun.”

“The locker room— man, that was indescribable,” Higdon said. “Crazier than Northwestern. Crazier than Wisconsin! Joyful, happy, celebratory— happy proud. Everyone jumping up and down— chanting, singing— one of those heartfelt victories. One of those moments you’re really proud to be part of a team like this. Pure joy.”

“I never saw Coach [Harbaugh] so happy,” Winovich said. “He said this might be his greatest victory ever. He’s won a few games, so that’s a big statement.”

“We’ve had some happy locker rooms,” Patterson told me. “But this was something else. Coach Harbaugh was almost in tears after that game. He got choked up a little bit— not common for him. It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine.”

“I don’t think we stopped singing for 20 minutes,” Bredeson said. “It took us a loooooong time to get to the showers, maybe an hour— twice as long as usual after a game. Coach didn’t care. We were on our own schedule.”

For Furbush, there was a bigger takeaway. “From our standpoint, having our team captain stand up for us, and our coach stand up for us, that was a big deal. They didn’t flinch, didn’t back down. They stood their ground. Man, that’s leadership. That’s a team.”

The team took two buses home, with the offense starting the trip with Paul Bunyan, passing it from back to front with everyone taking photos with it. Halfway home, the buses pulled into a rest area so Higdon could give the trophy to Chase Winovich, who started the process all over again in the defense’s bus. Michigan fans who recognized the buses honked their horns.

Borrowing a page from his UFC hero Conor McGregor, Winovich could not resist tweeting the following: “I’d like to take this moment, TO APOLOGIZE FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” It received 30,734 “likes.”

I’d like to take this moment to apologize... FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Go Blue!

— Chase Winovich (@Wino) October 20, 2018

IN ANN ARBOR Winovich joined his friends at a bar “with my hood up, trying to hide and stay low key, but it wasn’t very effective. People were joyous.”

The bars can be fun, but for the players they come with hidden dangers.

“The bars aren’t worth the trouble,” junior Tyler Cochran, son of Michigan All- American Brad, told me. “People figure out pretty quickly you’re on the team, they’ve all got cell phones to record whatever happens, and a few frat guys might try to start a fight to prove how tough they are.”

That’s exactly what happened one night that fall at a popular college bar, when a fraternity member started mouthing off to one of Michigan’s starting defenders. Nothing too unusual about that, but when the fraternity brother pushed it too far, a few sparks flew that could have grown into a brushfire.

Instead, a handful of Michigan football players seemed to materialize out of nowhere, like undercover agents called into action, and immediately mobilized. Two players bear-hugged the instigator and walked him out of the bar, depositing him outside, and telling him not to return.

Back in the bar a few more players formed a tight circle around the first player to keep the other fraternity brothers from kicking dust up, then they all left the bar calmly but quickly. Secret Service agents couldn’t have handled it much better.

“It was all over in seconds,” Bredeson told me. “Look, we don’t practice this stuff, so it was amazing to see how fast we rallied. I felt good about that. We look out for each other when we’re outside of the building. As much as everyone loves you, some guys want to make their name at your expense. The worst invention for student-athletes was the cell phone.

“Sometimes the bars can be a lot of fun. Do I think about how much fun we miss being football players? Sure, but I bet the other students think a lot more about being on the team.”

The older players tend to celebrate at their homes surrounded by trusted friends instead of taking their chances on the unpredictable bar crowds. They often hang out with athletes from other sports, and date athletes. Their schedules are just as crazy.

The linemen also preferred playing noon games.

“You play at seven, and your whole day is shot,” Bredeson told me. “We don’t like lying around. We want to go hit someone! And we have no meetings on game days. If you don’t know it by then, you’re not going to know it. Coach [Harbaugh] lets us sleep in until noon, so we can ‘cut the day in half.’

“So we love noon games. You’re done by four, the sun is still up, your parents come over to your home and make a big meal for you. And it’s fun. At 4:30, you’ve won your game, you’ve got a plateful of food in front of you, and you’re watching big teams lose. That’s great. “That’s what I live for: those few delicious hours after a nice win,”

Jon Runyan Jr. said. “Some of my best memories are just hanging out with my teammates and our parents at the house.”

Runyan lived at the home the Glasgow family bought a few years ago called the Lumber Yard, along with Jared Wangler, tight ends Zach Gentry and Sean McKeon, quarterback Brandon Peters, and Glasgow himself, of course. Due to its location near Schembechler Hall it had become a drop-in home for other players.

On this particular night, the scene at the Lumber Yard was particularly festive. The Wolverines had beaten a ranked team on the road to end that 17-game losing streak that appeared endlessly on TV. Now they had the rest of the day to enjoy it with full plates of food and full houses, with big games to watch the rest of the night. An eye-opener was playing out in West Lafayette, Indiana, where Purdue was making Ohio State look horrible.

“We just couldn’t believe it,” Runyan recalled. “The Purdue running back broke a few tackles, then busted out an a 40-yard run. We turned to each other in disbelief. ‘Is this happening? Is this Ohio State?’ ”

It was. Final score: 49–20. The Buckeyes had gotten smoked by the same team that had lost to Eastern Michigan.

After Winovich’s group returned from the bars, the party continued at their home.

“We were all there,” Winovich told me the next day, after his mandatory physical exam. “Shea and some football buddies, pumping the music, dancing, having a joyous time. Just carefree, for one night. Finally let myself breathe.

“It was the best day of my life. When I finally went to bed, I couldn’t go to sleep. First time all day I had heard quiet, no noise. It was the weirdest thing.

“I was so happy and content with life, I didn’t want to go to sleep. I didn’t even care.

“With a bye week coming up, after I get home [today, Sunday], I’m going to take the best nap of my life.”