Barnett-Harbaugh matchup first in Michigan-Michigan State rivalry with alums as coaches

EAST LANSING — In four words, Harlon Barnett summed up his fondest memory of a long, personal history inside the Michigan State-Michigan football rivalry — five games as a player, 13 as an assistant coach.

“Minus-48 rushing yards,” the Spartans’ interim head coach said Monday, alluding to MSU’s 29-6 demolishment of the Wolverines 10 years ago en route to the 2013 Big Ten championship and its last Rose Bowl win.

Barnett is about to become part of another historic moment.

Of all the former players who have taken over both programs — from Harry Kipke to Bennie Oosterbaan and Bump Elliott at U-M, from George Gauthier to Muddy Waters and George Perles at MSU — Saturday’s game will be the first with two alums leading their respective alma mater in the rivalry game.

The meeting of Barnett and U-M’s Jim Harbaugh was never on anyone’s schedule and wouldn’t have been possible without the firing of Mel Tucker last month. But it will mark the first time two men who went head-to-head as players competing for the Paul Bunyan Trophy will meet as head coaches.

“It's the best rivalry in football in my opinion,” Barnett said. “And so you trying to tell (players), but sometimes don't know until they play in it. I've heard many guys, even as a freshman in their first game against these guys, say, ‘Oh, I see what you mean now.’

"Sometimes, it don't matter. You can say all you want throughout the week. It's not until afterward sometimes. But once they get in it, then they really understand what you've been trying to tell them.”

The coaching matchup will be one of a number of firsts in the 116th installment of a series that dates back to 1898.

The nationally televised 7:30 p.m. kickoff on NBC also will be the first night game between the Spartans (2-4, 0-3 Big Ten) and Wolverines (7-0, 4-0) at Spartan Stadium. They have played two night games in Ann Arbor, a 14-10 MSU victory in 2017 and last year’s 29-7 U-M win at Michigan Stadium.

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It also will be the first meeting since the tunnel fight between two Wolverines and a number of Spartans following last year’s game, after which eight MSU players were suspended. Three of the seven Spartans charged criminally for their role in the altercation remain on the active roster (Angelo Grose, Brandon Wright and Zion Young), one is out for the rest of the season with injury (Jacoby Windmon), one remains suspended for two more games (Khary Crump) and two others are no longer with the program (Itayvion Brown and Justin White).

Barnett said he does not plan to address his team this week on what happened a year ago.

“We're focused on this year and just playing the game 11-on-11 on the football field,” he said. “Because that's all that matters. And that's where our focus is, 11-on-11 on the football field. You get a chance to get out there and get after them and play hard. And all the other stuff, we're moving forward past that.”

Barnett knows what that means.

He played in four games for MSU against U-M during his time as a defensive back under George Perles from 1985-89, going 1-3 but experiencing the highs of winning in 1987.

Barnett then returned as an assistant coach and eventually as co-defensive coordinator for former boss Mark Dantonio, helping flip the rivalry, with the Spartans going 8-3 between 2007-17, and then adding two more victories in 2020 and 2021 as part of Mel Tucker’s staff.

“I don't know if much has changed,” Barnett said when asked about the rivalry from his playing days until now. “As a player, I didn't win as many as I would have liked to have won. But as a coach, I have won more. So that's changed, the winning aspect from my personal perspective, if I can say that.”

Barnett is just the fourth former Spartan player to serve as their head coach, along with Gauthier (1918) Perles (1983-94) and Waters (1980-82). Harbaugh is just the fourth former U-M player as its head coach, along with Tad Wieman (1927-28), Kipke (1929-37), Oosterban (1948-58) and Elliott (1959-68).

Despite holding an interim tag, Barnett said he still feels the type of intensity for the rivalry that was formed by playing for Perles, who himself played for Duffy Daugherty from 1954-56 and (like Harbaugh) returned from coaching pro football to take over MSU’s program.

“You go back Coach Perles – that's who I always go back to because he was my coach here – and how he talked about (the rivalry) and gave the history of it and all of that. ... I blame coach Perles, I always say that,” Barnett said. “He got me fired up, that's how I've been. I've been that way ever since 1985.”

Barnett redshirted in 1985, and his first time playing in the rivalry game was Harbaugh’s last, a 27-6 U-M win in Ann Arbor (the entire game is actually available to watch on YouTube). The only time Harbaugh as a quarterback lost to MSU came in 1984, when he suffered a broken arm during the third quarter of the Spartans’ eventual 19-7 victory.

Harbaugh is 4-4 against MSU since returning to his alma mater in 2015. He lost his first game against Dantonio, with the fumbled punt snap returned for a touchdown giving the Spartans an improbable 27-23 victory.

Coincidentally, a fumbled punt snap began MSU’s undoing Saturday at Rutgers, as the Spartans blew an 18-point lead going into the fourth quarter of an eventual 27-24 loss, their fourth straight. Barnett continues to search for his first win since taking over for Tucker on Sept. 10.

“I'm not gonna lie, Saturday was a gut punch. That was a gut punch,” Barnett said. “But as a man, as a leader, you gotta step up in those situations and try to get an understanding of what it's all about, the big picture, and then relate it to the young man. I told them, 'Hey men, in life, adversity is going to hit. And that's when you find out who a person really is, in the midst of adversity.'

“And I'm no different, so I have to step up and be the person I say that I am and present that to them, so they can have an example to positively look to.”

Harbaugh finished 3-2 against MSU’s all-time winningest coach. Tucker became the first Spartan coach to beat the Wolverines in his first two seasons, 2020 and 2021, before last year’s loss. With Dantonio back in the fold helping Barnett, the interim coach is expected to rely on some of his mentor’s old tricks — but wouldn’t say what.

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“Because he has a secret formula to success, I can't share,” Barnett said of Dantonio. “So I'll just say it that way, if that's OK.”

Two other interesting coaching tidbits from the past:

∎ The coach of the Michigan Agricultural College Aggies in their inaugural 1898 meeting against the Wolverines was Henry Keep, a former University of Michigan engineering student who transferred to the school in East Lansing but is not known to have played football at either school. He coached opposite Gustave Ferbert, who played for U-M from 1893-96.

∎ This, however, won’t be the first time that both coaches played in the rivalry. The 1928 game featured two former Wolverines, Harry Kipke at then-Michigan State College and his former teammate Wieman at U-M. Wieman’s Wolverines won that game, 3-0, but Wieman would be relieved of his duties the following spring.

His replacement? Kipke, who added fuel to the fledgling rivalry on his way back to Ann Arbor.

“Coaching Michigan is the greatest football job in America,” Kipke said. “I would be foolish to turn down such an offer.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Barnett, Harbaugh to make history in Michigan-Michigan State game