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That’s all we heard throughout much of the Mark Dantonio era at Michigan State, at least when the Spartans were having success against the Wolverines.
The veritable ‘chip on the shoulder.’
MSU constantly scoffed at being the perceived second-rate program in the state of Michigan, behind the storied Wolverines. Dantonio, when he took over in East Lansing, particularly prioritized the rivalry with Michigan, which eventually led to the war of words between him and Mike Hart after his first game and loss to the maize and blue in 2007.
Mel Tucker, hired away from Colorado this week to replace Dantonio, isn’t exactly out there saying ‘pride comes before the fall’ or calling any of Michigan’s players short as Dantonio had. Neither is the former Ohio State assistant under Jim Tressel making bold or grand proclamations at this point about MSU’s feasibility in the next matchup between the two programs.
What he is promising is that the rivalry will be prioritized for him, according to The Detroit News.
“The Michigan game is not just another game,” Tucker said on “The Drive With Jack,” an online radio show with longtime Lansing journalist Jack Ebling. “That’s something that we embrace. I don’t believe in downplaying expectations — that’s useless. It is what it is.”
“There’s rivalry games that are different than other games,” Tucker said. “You can say that a game is a game, and they’re all the same, we want to win every game but, hey, let’s be honest, Michigan State-Michigan is different. And I understand that.”
But then came some familiar adages, that sounded like they came from both Dantonio and Tressel — though he didn’t go quite as far as either when discussing Michigan.
“I feel like we’ve got something to prove, there’s no doubt about that,” Tucker said. “We’ve got a chip on our shoulders. … (Fans) are gonna see is a brand of football they can be proud of. We gotta look on the field and say, ‘Those guys are playing hard, they care, they’re all-in.’ It’s one thing to play the game for what the game can do for you, but it’s another thing to play the game because you love it. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played.”
MSU plays Michigan near the early portion of a brutal seven game stretch next year, which sees the Spartans take on Miami (FL), Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, Indiana, Minnesota and Penn State in consecutive games. They host the Wolverines in East Lansing on Oct. 10.