Michigan–Michigan State football rivalry
| First meeting | October 12, 1898 Michigan, 39–0 |
|---|---|
| Latest meeting | October 26, 2024 Michigan, 24–17 |
| Next meeting | October 25, 2025 |
| Trophy | Paul Bunyan Trophy |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 117 |
| All-time record | Michigan leads, 74–38–5 |
| Trophy series | Michigan leads, 41–29–2 |
| Largest victory | October 8, 1902 Michigan, 119–0 |
| Longest win streak | Michigan, 14 (1916–1929) |
| Longest unbeaten streak | Michigan, 18 (1916–1933) |
| Current win streak | Michigan, 3 (2022–present) |
The Battle for the Paul Bunyan Trophy is an American college football rivalry between the Michigan Wolverines and the Michigan State Spartans. The teams have met 116 times since 1898, including in every year since 1945.
The winner of each year's game receives the Paul Bunyan – Governor of Michigan Trophy, a four-foot wooden statue of a lumberjack. It was first presented in 1953, when Michigan State football began competing as a member of the Big Ten Conference.
Michigan leads the series with an overall record of 74–38–5, in part because Michigan State won only two games (in 1913 and 1915, under head coach John Macklin) and tied three others in the first 28 years of the rivalry. Since 1949, the series is 41–32–2 in favor of Michigan.
Forty-four of the first 50 games were played on Michigan's home field; the teams began alternating home fields in 1958. The game has never been contested anywhere besides Ann Arbor or East Lansing.
The Spartans won four consecutive games from 1934 to 1937 under head coach Charlie Bachman, then lost 12 in a row after the arrival of Fritz Crisler as Michigan's head coach in 1938. The Spartans' longest run of success against the Wolverines was in the 1950s and 1960s, when they went 14–4–2 under head coaches Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty.
The pendulum shifted back to the Wolverines under Bo Schembechler and his successors: Michigan won 30 of 38 contests from 1970 to 2007. After Mike Hart said in 2007 that the Spartans were the Wolverines' "little brother", Spartans head coach Mark Dantonio led his team to victory in seven of eight games from 2008 to 2015. From 2016 to 2019, Michigan won three out of four, but the Spartans won the 2020 and 2021 games under new head coach Mel Tucker, and Michigan won the next three games from 2022 to 2024.
The Big Ten Conference removed the divisional format in 2024, but designated the Michigan-Michigan State game one of the 11 rivalry games guaranteed to continue under the conference's "Flex Protect Model". Because the Big Ten Championship Game features the top two teams in the conference, the schools could theoretically meet twice in a season.