Before we play this annual our-school’s-better-than-yours-game, let me establish a couple of facts:

1. Nobody who can pick between Michigan or MSU picks Sparty. The state’s education ladder goes as follows: Michigan, Michigan Tech, MSU, directional school (Western, Eastern, Southern), community college.

Michigan is a world-renowned university.

MSU is a cow college.

This is a fact. Anyone who tells you differently goes somewhere between MSU and community college.

2. James Madison is not a school in Michigan. It’s a well-respected college in Virginia. When asked what school they attend, Sparties who couldn’t manage in Political Science here say James Madison to feel better about their education. As if anybody from out-of-state has ever heard of this program. James Madison is a safety net named after a forgotten president not affiliated with MSU.

It’s all right to be a lousy school if you’re good at partying, something Sparties claim to be good at. There be a hootin’ tootin’ barnburner tonight, they say.

I say, burning couches, tear gas and news cameras don’t necessarily make a good party.

MSU is given credit for being a good party school because it’s got nothing else going for it. It’s like when the teacher calls a student a good speller because he’s terrible at everything else. He’s not really good at spelling, but he’s got to be good at something.

The reality is, when Michigan wants to, it’s better than any school in Ingham County that actually offers a vending commerce class (this is a real class. I kid you not!) at partying.

Michigan annually throws Hash Bash and the Naked Mile. Two nationally recognized parties. (By the way, I’m on to you Sparty. There’s something a little more than suspicious about the “U-M student” who’s at these events who knows nothing about U-M).

The parties at State are just 20 guys wearing fisherman hats and sleeveless Old Navy fleeces talking about how much better MSU’s packaging program is than U-M’s.

But despite all the ruckus at “The Farmhouse,” your average MSU student does try hard in school. The problem is that the average MSU student was that kid in elementary school who continuously answered the teacher’s questions, but the answers were never close to being right.

“Seven times six,” the teacher asked.

“Thirteen!” he yelled (seven times six is 42, Sparty).

It almost seemed like he talked to hear himself talk.

You tell people that you could have come here, but fill-in-the-blank-program at State is better than anyone else’s.

Nobody believes you.

Michigan is, has always been, and will always be, better.

Nobody would rather be affiliated with State than us. I know you were told that both were good schools. We’re not.

State was ranked the Big Ten’s worst doctoral school.

Around this state, Michigan takes what it wants, when it wants. Anything you do, we do better, even athletics.

Now before you start hootin’ and hollerin’ about basketball, realize that we haven’t cared about basketball in a long time.

There’s no other explanation for the Brian Ellerbe tenure.

Even Tom Izzo knows that it took a series of strange events to lead to that little spurt of success you had. He knows the MSU name won’t hold water for very long.

Now that that we’ve decided that we want to dominate basketball again, we’ll reestablish ourself as king.

You guys have a nice hockey team, but when was the last time you won a national title?

And football? Michigan strives for championship. Lansing’s best hotel-management school strives for six wins, a win over “rival” Central Michigan, a trip to the Independence or Liberty Bowl and a subsequent loss to Louisiana State.

With four wins, you only need two more for that trip.

And you might get those wins.

But you just won’t get one of them this week.

Raphael Goodstein, a Michigan Daily sport editor, loves that he just called MSU students morons, and was printed in The State News. Reach him at at raphaelg@umich.edu.