Why Michigan football must hold onto college football's 'ugliest trophy'

Twenty years ago, Lloyd Carr called the four-foot Paul Bunyan statue hoisted by the winners of the Michigan-Michigan State game “the ugliest trophy in college football.”

But, the former Wolverines coach added, “When you don’t have him, you miss him.”

For almost 13 months, the painted icon has remained in Michigan’s custody after it was repossessed last October after the Wolverines’ third victory over the Spartans in the last 11 seasons.

Odds suggest Michigan will retain the miniature Paul Bunyan — that mythological hirsute lumberjack of the upper Midwest — for another year. Vegas has the Wolverines listed as 13.5-point favorites. And the betting cognoscenti are usually right about these things.

But not when it comes to Michigan and Michigan State.

[ Michigan football vs. Michigan State: Scouting report, prediction ]

Since 1999, the Wolverines are 6-14 against the spread in this rivalry game. Two years ago, Michigan State was a 12.5-point underdog. The Spartans won anyway. In 2015, the Wolverines were favored to win by a touchdown. They lost in calamitous fashion, when the Spartans returned a botched punt to the end zone on the final play of the game.

“There's been times where they have been 4-0 and we've been 1-3,” Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said earlier this week, “yet we have been able to find a way to win.”

Dantonio hopes the unpredictable nature of this series endures for one more installment. The Spartans are 4-5, suffering through the malaise accompanying a four-game losing streak. Michigan, meanwhile, is ascending — to use an oft-repeated word from its coach, Jim Harbaugh. The Wolverines have prevailed in five of their last six games and sit at No. 14 in the latest polls.

The Wisconsin debacle that tarnished the first act of the 2019 season has become an afterthought, and the mood inside Schembechler Hall has brightened in the last month. Players are brimming with confidence again. Harbaugh's assistants are smiling a lot more. But on Monday, Harbaugh himself wore a wary look, telling the media his team is on “high alert.”

“Throw out the records — an old cliché you can use when you play this type of game,” he said.

Harbaugh knows the importance attached to a victory over their in-state nemesis. He’s 2-2 against Michigan State since returning to Ann Arbor to lead his alma mater’s football program. Beating the Spartans on Saturday would not only vault him ahead of Dantonio in the head-to-head matchup for the first time during his Michigan tenure, but it would also affirm to outsiders the Wolverines again control a state it once ruled with an iron fist.

[ Michigan vs. Michigan State: Everything you need to know ]

Not since Carr was still patrolling the sideline has Michigan defeated the Spartans in consecutive years — a stunning fact when considering the Wolverines beat their rival 13 out of 14 years during the height of the Schembechler era and won six straight times in the aughts.

On Tuesday, it was Dantonio who was asked whether he faced additional stress to deliver a positive result that could help salvage the Spartans’ season.

But it’s Harbaugh who is facing the most pressure to ensure that the positive momentum isn’t scuttled with another befuddling loss to Michigan State. The Wolverines made a painstaking effort to reevaluate their program in wake of that 35-14 loss to Wisconsin, instituting new measures that not only reset their trajectory but also helped remove the climate of negativity in and around Ann Arbor.

With a defeat, the fruits of their labor could be squandered and the skepticism that once surrounded the program would return.

A lot is riding on this game for both teams.

But more is at stake for the Wolverines.

They must find a way to keep their hands on the ugliest trophy in college football.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin. Read more on the Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Big Ten newsletter.