I will spare you any prediction of who will win tonight's Michigan State/Notre Dame game, because I really have no idea. And do you really want my opinion anyway? Probably not. (All I will say is that it should be a close game, maybe not decided until late in the fourth quarter),
Instead, I want to look back on this rivalry, because after tonight's game it will most likely not be renewed for another eight years. For these two schools that have had a long and storied football series, this is an unfortunate state of affairs. However, it's the sad reality of modern college football. Conference realignments (with Notre Dame obligated to play several ACC teams each season) and emphasis on money and recruiting (games in California against the likes of Stanford and USC are more lucrative in these regards than MSU in East Lansing) have pretty much killed one of the game's oldest rivalries.
So I thought I'd take a trip down my own personal memory lane and revisit the Spartans' wins (and memorable losses).
Though the Spartans beat Notre Dame in 1975, I have no specific memory of that game. I'm sure it was on television and I'm sure my parents were probably watching it, but at best it's a blur.
The Spartans' 28-23 win in 1983 was the first memorable Notre Dame game for me. In George Perles' first season, and second game as coach, he took what were essentially Muddy Waters' ragtag recruits and quite improbably beat the #4 Irish in South Bend. As it turns out, Notre Dame was highly overrated at the time, and finished '83 with a pedestrian 7-5 record. Still, the 4-6-1 Spartans had no business beating Notre Dame in South Bend. It was George's first big win as coach, but placed some unrealistic expectations on that team and Perles.
The next MSU win came in 1986, my freshman year at MSU. I have previously written in this blog about my 18-year-old idiot self almost provoking a fight before the game with a guy in a Notre Dame t-shirt. I may be lucky that my college career didn't come to a crashing halt before it had even begun. Instead, I made it back to Shaw Hall and watched the game in an upper classman's room with a bunch of other people. It was my first moment of fun in college, watching Dean Altobelli, Todd Krumm and company eek out a 20-15 win at Spartan Stadium.
Then we had a long drought. There was the nightmarish loss in 1987 (one of the few dark clouds in an otherwise bright sunny Rose Bowl season), heartbreaking and freakish losses in 1990 and 1994.
After a two-year break in the series, Nick Saban's 1997 team registered a dominating 23-7 win in South Bend. Thus began an unexpected five-game winning streak over the Bob Davie led Irish.
I can remember how shocked I was to come home from work late on Saturday night in 1998 and see that the Spartans had built a 42-3 lead over the Irish AT HALFTIME. That schizophrenic Spartan team had been blown out the previous week at Oregon and I had little hope that they'd be competitive with ND, much less win--but they pulled out a stunner. (Befitting that 1998 team's nature, they lost focus in the second half and were outscored 20-3, but had built such a huge lead that it didn't matter).
The Spartans continued the streak with a 23-13 win in 1999 (Gari Scott with sprinting down the sideline for a TD is etched in my brain), 27-21 in 2000 (freshman QB Jeff Smoker connecting on a last ditch 4th down TD reception to Herb Haygood in one of MSU football's most memorable moments), and a 17-10 win in 2001 that I barely remember.
The only Notre Dame game I have ever attended in person was in 2002. It looked for all the world like MSU would extend the streak to six when Charles Rogers made an acrobatic catch in the north end zone to give MSU a 17-14 lead late in the game. But on the ensuing kickoff the Irish ran the ball all the way back for a touchdown. From that point on, the 2002 season went in a tailspin.
In 2005, the Spartans won a dramatic overtime game with Jason Teague taking the ball in for the decisive score. This was followed by the controversial "flag planting" at the 50-yard-line of Notre Dame Stadium. The Irish claimed revenge in 2006 in the "monsoon game" when the Spartans blew a 16-point lead and saw the '06 season flush itself down the toilet.
There was the "Javon Ringer carries the team" game in 2008 when he rushed for over 200 yards in a 23-7 win. And who can forget Little Giants in 2010, one of the most exciting wins in Spartan history that was also one of Mark Dantonio's defining wins as MSU football coach.
I could go on about the next few games after Little Giants, but the power of my computer is dying, and Little Giants seems like an appropriate place to end. Who knows what excitement 2017 will bring?
It has been an eventful rivalry and one that will be missed.
