Michigan St has been the most competitive, hardest-hitting rival that I recall. I witnessed some intense slugfests back in the Chuck Long/Ronnie Harmon era.
Is anyone familiar with a website that lists scores from this series from say the last 25 years? I went poking around but nothing quick and easy.
First of all, these are two sites you need to bookmark if you're a CFB fan. Maybe there are problems with them, but none that I know...
1) College Football Data Warehouse: I think it has every score for every season for every team...ever. Want to know the scores for Iowa-Camp Dodge (IA) game played on November 30th, 1918? You can find it here. (The score was a 0-0 tie, btw)
College Football Data Warehouse
2) College Football Statistics: This is a pretty up-to-date site with a lot of specific stats that you can even breakdown within the game.
cfbstats.com - College Football Statistics
Anyway, back on topic:
We're 22-18-2 against MSU all-time (since they joined the B1G in 1950s). Of the 42 games we've played, 19 games have been decided by 7 points or less. That doesn't count the 2 tie games.
From 2000-present, we are 6-3. The most we've lost by is 10 points (2003) and the most we've won by is 31 points (last year). 5 of the 9 games have been decided by 7 points or less (the 7 point game was an OT game, IIRC). Also, the Hawks are 5-0 at home against the Spartans since 2000. We're 1-3 at East Lansing.
1990-1999 (inclusive): 4-2. Biggest loss was by 46 (1999) and biggest win was by 14 (1995, which was also our last win at East Lansing before 2009). We were 2-0 at Kinnick and 2-2 at MSU.
From 1982 to 1990 (inclusive), we played the Spartans every year. In those games, we went 5-3-1. Those games were decided by the following point margins: 6, 6, 1, 4, 3, 5, 0 (tie), 3 and 5.
Incidentally, the last time MSU beat us at Kinnick was 1989... we lost that game 14-17.