By the time I woke on Monday, I saw the headline and was disgusted.

There are no moral victories. There are only wins or losses. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

The University of Michigan didn’t deliver a heavy-handed knockout in the way of Biblical proportions. It didn’t go for the early right hook carrying the weight of a decade of domination.

Instead, the Wolverines imposed their will with swift body cuts, draining the life out of the Spartans as the game dragged on, never far from control of the game — mathematically or physically.

That is what a good team does. It sticks to its guns, plays within itself and never commits detrimental mistakes in crucial times.

The U-M defense, on occasion, bent but never broke. The offense did its part by halftime and the vastly inferior MSU was left to squeak out points to make it appear closer.

While U-M showed cracks and was absent on offense for much of the second half, MSU can take no solace in its performance because this effort was too little, too late.

MSU played perhaps its most inspired game, firing on the running game, putting up 23 points on a team that had given up more than 10 points only once and allowing scarce points in the second half for the first time all season.

Yet even with the good feelings, MSU never deserved to win that game when it lined up with no receivers on fourth and goal and never once decided to pass in that four-play sequence.

It never deserved to win when it can't pick up fourth-and-one from the U-M 38-yard line and can't capitalize on a rare interception by the defense. 

Under Mark Dantonio, the Spartans have long added extra emphasis to its annual rivalry with U-M, and therein lies the problem that created this mess of a season in the first place.

Dantonio’s challenging of the state’s status quo made clear sense in his inaugural year. He attacked the head, embracing all that Spartan fans hated about U-M, and he flaunted it.

The first attack of the Dantonio era was U-M. After dominating the Wolverines in his decade at the helm, next came the title games, the Rose Bowl and the shot at a national title. His teams had adorned themselves in swagger, and defeating U-M became a check on the list to a title, not the goal.

Yet the game has always carried that extra appeal, even in the years where the game was a given. While the air of rivalries can’t be ignored, these games, as Jim Harbaugh pointed out, ought to be treated like a big game or a championship game.

MSU lacked that effort against Wisconsin. Against Indiana. Against BYU. Against Northwestern and Maryland.

Why in the last six weeks did it show only once?

For a team confident enough to plaster "Back2Back" to its shirts, it certainly never showed the toughness needed to win those games. For a program hell-bent on having its name thrust into the lights of the big stages, it can't even show up for lesser opponents.

How in the world can program so enamored with glory, resort back to showing up only for U-M?

Had the Spartans displayed the will to topple U-M in the previous weeks, perhaps they would have come into the weekend with a respectable record.

Until the mindset transforms that every game is a big game in the hunt for a Big Ten title, MSU ought to saunter into the corner until it gets serious and decides it wants to play big boy football.

Previous Spartan iterations had the hunger. This one seems drunk on success, picking and choosing when to show up.

There are no moral victories. Not now, not at this stage of the program. 

How far it has fallen.