Two new quarterbacks show that a resumption of the rivalry between MSU and Michigan is possible
As the clock ticked down to zero in the final minutes of regulation, Alex Orji took the ball and sprinted forward through a mass of bodies. The Michigan football quarterback gained a yard, then another, then four more before charging across the goal line and delivering the merciless final blow. It was the Wolverines’ parting shot after their 49-0 loss to Michigan State football last fall.
Nearly nine months later, on a chilly June morning in Detroit, Orji stood at the SAY Play Center. Right next to him was the Spartans’ new quarterback, Aidan Chiles, the highly touted transfer from Oregon State who will look to exact revenge on Orji and the defending national champions when their teams meet again in late October.
Chiles and Orji posed for photos, smiling, as one child after another took their place between them. Twelve, maybe even six, months ago, the scene would have been unimaginable. Back then, the embers of the heated skirmish that broke out in the tunnel of Michigan Stadium after the Wolverines’ victory over the Spartans in October 2022 were still smoldering. The fight, which resulted in the suspension of eight Spartans players, a $100,000 fine for MSU and a reprimand for UM, was seen as an unfortunate flashpoint in a rivalry that had turned ugly. Some even wondered if the Big Ten should broker a detente by pausing the series between the two schools that had split the previous 24 games.
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But this always seemed like an overreaction, and the voices of reason ultimately prevailed.
“It’s OK to be competitors and friends at the same time,” Donovan Dooley, a quarterback coach from Detroit, told the Free Press.
That was the message Chiles and Orji delivered on Sunday at a free youth soccer training session called “I am.” The training was organized by the Childs Play Foundation, a local nonprofit organization that aims to encourage sports participation among children in underserved areas.
As morning turned to Sunday afternoon, they worked together to support a good cause. For four hours, they floated in the same orbit, united by a common goal.
“Nobody ever thought a Michigan quarterback and Michigan State would do something together,” said Dooley, who presided over the event on the field. “It’s a no-no across the state.”
Even Michigan receiver Semaj Morgan wasn’t sure what to make of it as he watched Orji, in a blue T-shirt, and Chiles, in a green, lead the campers through drills.
Ally with the enemy?
Morgan, who is from West Bloomfield, was not really keen on the idea and observed the situation from a nearby patch of grass.
“Because I don’t like Michigan State,” he said with a slightly disgusted expression on his face.
Between the lines, in the heat of the moment, Orji doesn’t do this either.
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“On Saturday we’re going to try to kick their ass, we’re going to try to beat them 50-0,” said the Michigan junior, who is one of the leading candidates to replace JJ McCarthy. “But right now Aidan is my guy. We’re doing training camp together. That’s clear right now. That’s the way it is. I don’t think we’re enemies right now. We’re not going to fight or anything.”
Instead, Chiles said, “We can come together.”
Even before Saturday, there were signs that the animosity between the two programs was beginning to thaw. Regime changes in East Lansing and Ann Arbor may have contributed. After Mel Tucker’s scandalous firing last fall, Jonathan Smith was hired to pick up the pieces. Freshman receiver Nick Marsh, who accompanied Chiles on Sunday, described Smith to the Free Press as “easy-going, cool, composed, relaxed.” As an outsider from the West Coast, Smith has maintained a detached perspective on the rivalry. That was evident in May when a reporter asked about two players, Jaden Mangham and Semaj Bridgeman, who had recently switched sides. Mangham, a junior safety from Beverly Hills, left MSU for Michigan. Later that same day, Bridgeman, a former four-star recruit from Philadelphia, announced he was transferring to Michigan State after one season with the Wolverines. In another era, such moves would have been sacrilege, perhaps even forbidden.
But, says Smith, “that’s the situation across the country today.”
When a reporter asked him about the issue, he said he wasn’t trying to “downplay” the importance of the incident in the context of the MSU-Michigan feud, but he didn’t seem too upset about it, either.
Jonathan Smith, football coach at Michigan State University, gives a preview of the spring show
Michigan State football coach Jonathan Smith discusses the Spartans’ spring practice on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 in East Lansing, Michigan.
Michigan State Athletics
Shortly before making those comments to the media at the National College Showcase at Wayne State University, Smith walked out of a speaking session in lockstep with Michigan coach Sherrone Moore. The two appeared convivial before going their separate ways. In January, Moore succeeded Jim Harbaugh, who left for the Los Angeles Chargers after repeatedly stoking the rivalry during his nine-year tenure. After a pregame scuffle in 2018, Harbaugh referred to MSU as the “Bush League.” After the tunnel incident two years ago, he added fuel to the fire when he said an “apology will not be enough in this case” and suggested “there should be serious consequences for the many guilty parties.”
Harbaugh and Mark Dantonio have used their positions of power to amplify the bitterness of the Michigan-MSU series during his 13 seasons in East Lansing. Smith and Moore now have the power to calm the situation. If they choose to do so, Orji and Chiles gave them a nice template on Sunday.
“When you see guys from Michigan and Michigan State shaking hands in the same position and doing something together, that’s a message in itself,” Dooley said. “It’s like, wow, this is new. This is foreign. And there’s no subliminal message. It’s loud and clear.”
More than eight months after dealing MSU a ruthless death blow in that landslide victory, Orji was more than willing to join Chiles in delivering the blow.
“I think this is a great opportunity, a great opportunity to show that we’re all on the same team here,” the Michigan quarterback said. “At the end of the day, he’s going to be a Spartan for life and I’m going to be a Wolverine for life. But we’re still going to be brothers for life.”
Who is big and who is small will be decided at a later date. For now they come together in peace.
Contact Rainer Sabin at [email protected]. Follow him @RainerSabin
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