The Michigan State Spartans football program represents Michigan State University in college football as members of the Big Ten Conference at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level. Michigan State has won or shared a total of six national championships (1951, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1965 and 1966), two Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association championships (1903 and 1905), and seven Big Ten championships (1953, 1965, 1966, 1978, 1987, 1990, and 2010). Currently 24 former Spartans are playing in the NFL.
Today, the team competes in Spartan Stadium, a 75,005 person football stadium in the center of campus, though frequently the stadium holds more than 80,000 spectators. Michigan State hired Mark Dantonio on November 27, 2006 as head coach. MSU's traditional archrival is the University of Michigan, against which they compete for the Paul Bunyan Trophy. Michigan State is one of three Big Ten teams to have an annual non-conference football game against the University of Notre Dame.
Read more about Michigan State Spartans Football: History, Rivalry/Trophy Games
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or football:
“This state is full of these log cabin Abe Lincolns with price tags on ‘em. The louder he yells, the higher his price.”
—Robert Rossen (1908–1966)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)