Michigan–Michigan State football rivalry

Uncommon card · No. 174932

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 118 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 75–38–5, 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 1968, the series is 39-19 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...

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