War is not football and football is not war, but having done both, sometimes they look similar

 

History is replete with stories of great civilizations pushing towards one another on an unavoidable path towards war’s judgement. Occasionally the two civilizations are at their most powerful, locked in a climactic battle over who will dominate the other. More often than not however, these great civilization conflicts are fought between one burgeoning great power on the road towards glory, and one formerly powerful civilization facing the specter of their own, very real, mortality. 

 

Such was the case in the year 280 BC when Greek citizens living on the Italian peninsula pled for help from their homeland to push back continuing Roman pressure on their borders. Their calls were answered by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, who put together a collection of Greek mercenary armies and marched towards the boot of Italy to put the upstart Roman Republic back in its place. Pyrrhus brought with him the feared Greek phalanxes, unstoppable spear tipped formations which had won various Greek kings empires, and were more machine than man. Phalanxes could, and had been defeated before, but rarely from a frontal attack. The Romans on the other hand had abandoned their phalanxes and had adopted a more flexible and mobile maniple formation. The flexible maniples were supported by strong Roman shields and swords, which tipped the scales in favor of the Roman infantry. 

Pyrrhus met initial success on the Italian peninsula but eventually the combination of Rome’s deeper reserve of soldiers, and the ease of training them in the maniple formation began to take their toll on the Greek forces. The war would continue for the next five years, until the Greek army was shattered at the Battle of Beneventum, after which Greek Phalanxes would never again threaten Italian soil. 

Mark D'Antony (circa 480BC, or Pyrrhus, whatever, not a historian)

 

For the next three centuries Roman would take apart the lands of Ancient Greece piece by piece. The Romans would destroy the Macedonians in a series of four wars, and seize southern Greece and take Corinth in the Achaean War. One by one the Greek city states fell, as cities which had determined the course of world events for centuries like Sparta and Athens were added to the folds of Rome. 

 

Greek armies continued to fight the Romans as bravely as they could, defending their homes and cities from the invading Latin Romans, but their victories, few and far between as they were, were never enough to push back against Rome’s destiny. 

By 89 BC however, all of what we know today as Greece had fallen to the Romans, and the Republic began to turn its eyes on Greek holdings in Anatolia and the Middle East. The Romans pushed into these conquered lands and met poor facsimiles of the once vaunted phalanxes. Greek armies and their allies still occasionally pulled off the occasional win against the Roman Legions, but more often than not those wins were a result of poor Roman leadership, blind luck, or a surprise attack. These new Greeks were no match for the Romans, and as the Roman victories began to pile up, they became more lopsided than the last. The Greek armies could barely put a functioning army on the field, and as the last sun set on their former empire on the waters of Actium in Egypt, they were no more than bit players in a Roman Civil War. The Greeks would never again rise to the level of prominence they once held in the world, and were stuffed into the locker of things past. 

 

While Michigan and Michigan State are by almost any definition a rivalry, Michigan’s near total dominance over the century old rivalry has been nearly absolute. While Rome-Greece is not a perfect metaphor, the eight game span between 2008 and 2016 saw Michigan State threaten Michigan’s dominance in a way unseen since the 50’s ( a period of time only Craig Ross remembers). Michigan was at its lowest point in half a century, and Michigan State under “early Dantonio” was at its highest. 5 of the 8 years Michigan State was ranked in the Top 25 on game day, and 2 of those years in the top 10. During the dark period Michigan won only one time, 2012 (a game I missed because I was busy in the Samangan Valley). The debacles that were Rich Rod and Hoke culminated in absolute hammerings of Michigan in 2013 and 2014, by margins of victories not seen since 1962. Michigan had its back against a wall, and then the tide began to turn in 2015 as Ann Arbor’s favorite son returned home

 

“clearly to the leader through the murky night appeared a mighty image of his country in distress, grief in her face, her white hair streaming from her tower-crowned head, with tresses torn and shoulders bare…”

 

While the next seven matchups saw Michigan State win over half, their dominance had clearly begun to crack under Michigan’s resurgence and change in tactics. Anyone who was at the 2015 game (including me) knew that Michigan was the better team. Despite having lost by 4 scores the year before, in his first season carrying the banner, Harbaugh had righted the ship and outplayed Michigan State for 59 minutes and 20 seconds. Michigan State won thanks to a bungled play that should never have been run, and Michigan’s defensive captain being ejected in the worst targeting call of all time. 

 

The following seasons saw a less than perfect Michigan team begin pushing the Spartans back into their rightful place. Michigan state still fought back, clutching to their last gasps of dominance, but their wins were almost always more about Michigan’s poor decision making (2017), Covid and Michigan’s poor decision making (2020), and a mercenary, the officials, and again, Michigan’s poor decision making (2021). The Spartan hegemony was cracking, and then in 2022 it shattered. 

 

Michigan State Football is a dumpster fire. They don’t even belong on the same field as Michigan. While the margins of victory in both 2022 and now 2023 have been startling, it has been the way Michigan has clearly dominated an inferior opponent in every aspect of the game. The Spartans of the past are gone. In their place stand ghostly shells of a program that has lost both its identity, and will. That famous Spartan Will that they hold up as their banner has crumbled under the Michigan Difference. The Spartans today seem content to go the same way the Sparta of old went into subjugation, not with a bang but with a whimper. We are at the stage of the rivalry where Michigan has pushed the Greeks from Rome, and are mopping up the last survivors across Asia. Michigan State can barely defend itself, let alone take anything back from Michigan. Only the cruelness of the Big Ten scheduling forces us to keep doing the kabuki year after year, and while Michigan State may win again, and they may some day re-establish themselves as relevant (the Greek resistance to the Italian invasion of 1940 is something to behold and it changed the course of WW2), they will have to wait another half century before they threaten Ann Arbor again. 

 

Vae Victis, Vae Sparta. East Lansing delenda est