State Of Michigan Trophy

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Back in September 2003, Pontiac started 'The Pontiac Challenge', to track the head-to-head competition between the University of Michigan and Michigan State University for the whole school year. They divided the school year up into 3 sessions (Fall, Winter, and Spring), and awarded a trophy to the winner of each session, with the current winner keeping it in the case of a tie.

Not too surprisingly, UM won (or tied) every session for all 3 years that Pontiac sponsored the Challenge (2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006). Also not too surprisingly, Pontiac lost interest when the Challenge got too one-sided. So, after the 2005-2006 season, they dropped it, but I picked it up. However, I thought their setup with the 3 sessions and a goofy scoring system could be improved, so I changed it to a single session (the whole school year), with 2 points for each win, and 1 point for each tie.

From 2006-2010, I used Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to track the results. I used the built-in spreadsheet-to-HTML converter in Excel to generate the Web pages, which I then had to upload to my Web site. It was clumsy, to say the least, so I wrote a PHP script, with some Javascript, to use MySQL to generate the Web pages 'on demand'. I also entered all the old data for the seasons going back to 2000-2001, which is as far back as I can find reliable information.

A quick look at the 'Season: Summary/Sport: All' page will show that UM has won the State of Michigan Trophy every year for the last 25 years except twice (2009-2010 and 2023-2024).

Date Sport Venue Score Points Comments Article
UM MSU UM MSU UM MSU
09/19/2025 (W) Field Hockey Ann Arbor 5 0 2 0   Wolverines Blank Rival MSU in Big Ten Opener Field Hockey Drops Conference Opener at #8 Michigan
09/26/2025 (M) Soccer Ann Arbor 1 2 0 2   U-M Suffers First Loss of 2025 to Michigan State in Battle for Big Bear Michigan State Retains the Big Bear Trophy with 2-1 Win over No. 5 Michigan
09/27/2025 (W) Volleyball East Lansing 0 3 0 2   Michigan Falls at Michigan State in B1G Contest Spartans Sweep Wolverines in Battle at Breslin
10/09/2025 (W) Soccer Ann Arbor 0 1 0 2   Wolverines Falter Against No. 18 Spartans in Rivalry Match Watson, Henning Help Spartans to 1-0 Win at Michigan
10/25/2025 (M) Football East Lansing 31 20 2 0   Haynes, Marshall Power Wolverines to Rivalry Win Over Spartans, Paul Bunyan Trophy Michigan State Falls at Home to No. 25 Michigan, 31-20
11/16/2025 (W) Volleyball Ann Arbor              
12/05/2025 (M) Hockey East Lansing              
12/06/2025 (M) Hockey Ann Arbor              
01/09/2026 (M) Wrestling Ann Arbor              
01/30/2026 (M) Basketball East Lansing              
02/01/2026 (W) Basketball East Lansing              
02/01/2026 (W) Gymnastics Ann Arbor              
02/06/2026 (M) Hockey Ann Arbor              
02/07/2026 (M) Hockey Detroit, MI         Duel In The D    
02/15/2026 (W) Basketball Ann Arbor              
03/08/2026 (M) Basketball Ann Arbor              
03/18/2026 (M) Baseball Ann Arbor              
04/10/2026 (M) Baseball East Lansing              
04/11/2026 (M) Tennis Ann Arbor              
04/11/2026 (M) Baseball East Lansing              
04/12/2026 (M) Baseball East Lansing              
04/18/2026 (W) Tennis East Lansing              
Total   4 6  

Record UM MSU
Home 1-2-0 (0.333) 1-1-0 (0.500)
Away 1-1-0 (0.500) 2-1-0 (0.667)
Neutral 0-0-0 (0.000) 0-0-0 (0.000)
Total 2-3-0 (0.400) 3-2-0 (0.600)

Please send any updates or corrections to Drew Montag (drew@montag.org)

Script last modified: Wednesday 09/24/2025 16:11:56 EDT

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