Michigan Football: Grading the Wolverines victory over MSU

It’s a great day to be a Michigan football fan after the whooping they placed on the Michigan State Spartans in Ann Arbor.

It wasn’t just winning the game that shows us Michigan is the better team and more equipped for lasting success, it’s the way in which they won that reveals deeper truths about the future of the rivalry. Through four quarters, only roughly ten minutes of the game wasn’t dominated by the Michigan football team in their route of Michigan State. The last time one of these teams defeated the other by such a large margin of victory was in 2002 when UM handed the Spartans the loss, 49-3. That began a period of winning for the maize and blue until the year after the legend Lloyd Carr retired.

The winning streaks have swung drastically since the turn of the century, however. While the Spartans went winless from 2002 to 2007, when that streak ended, MSU exacted revenge by going 8-2. Judging by what we saw yesterday, 2020 and beyond will likely see the Paul Bunyan trophy mostly staying in Ann Arbor, continuing the pattern of a lasting reign.

Or, maybe not. Teams have turned around almost overnight. Take LSU, for example. In 2018, they lost to Alabama 29-0, only to pull out the victory a year later. An embarrassing loss followed by a heroic upset. Sound familiar?

We could look at other case studies from around college football, but that’s for another time. Here, the Wolverines will be graded on their performance.

As always, the grades are based on an A-F scale.