ANN ARBOR — Jordan Hall couldn’t play in Michigan State’s big 15-6 win over Michigan, but there was nobody more fitting in the eyes of teammates to carry the Paul Bunyan Trophy up the Michigan Stadium tunnel than the Spartans‘ injured captain.
Hall cradled Paul Bunyan and his new Spartan helmet in his arms as he walked to the locker room before handing it off to coach Pat Fitzgerald. For one of MSU’s key seniors who stuck with the program amid its worst stretch in modern history, Saturday’s win provided a moment of catharsis — and in their hopes, a moment of change.
Michigan State linebacker Jordan Hall lifts the Paul Bunyan trophy after the Spartans’ 15-6 victory over Michigan on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“This was a big win for our seniors,” Fitzgerald said at the podium of a visiting media room, sweaty and exuberant from winning his rivalry debut. “You know, I think about our seniors, we talked about this in the offseason, they had not been successful in this game.”
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Michigan State’s last win in the rivalry had come in 2021, before almost all of these seniors got to campus. The only player currently on the roster who was on that winning team is cornerback Charles Brantley, who has been injured the past three games. MSU had not only lost the past four meetings in the rivalry series, but also 34 of its past 45 Big Ten games entering Saturday.
Sprinting up the tunnel, hooting and hollering in the aftermath, those seniors finally got their first rivalry win.
“This is just a great momentum shift in our team, in the locker room,” senior safety Nikai Martinez said. “Just to know everything we went through, we never gave up.”
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Hall is perhaps the embodiment of that persistence, even though he spent the whole game standing on the sideline for the fifth game he has missed this season. He tried to play through two previous injuries this season to his arm and his ankle. And because of that, he only got himself hurt worse: a third separate injury against Illinois that had his arm slinged up on the sideline the previous two games. NFL Draft stock, his football future be darned, the two-year MSU captain was going to try and help this team win.
Hall was the first player to get Paul Bunyan after MSU’s win on Saturday, Nov. 7, and he hardly wanted to put him down. His teammates didn’t really want him to, either.
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“The best part is just providing for the seniors, man,” said running back Brandon Tullis, the fifth string on the depth chart but the back who led the game with 25 carries for 86 yards. “That never been able to hold the trophy, man, that’s really the sentimental part of the game. I was just happier for them to be able to hold that trophy before they leave.”
“As someone who missed important games myself, personally, I can only project myself — today is an awesome day for our program,” Fitzgerald said. “And to see him happy, I’m over the moon. He has been an outstanding captain. He’s been an outstanding teammate.”
Think of the program Hall arrived to. He joined Michigan State after an ugly rivalry loss in 2022 got uglier when a fight in that same Michigan Stadium tunnel led to criminal charges against seven teammates. His freshman debut came in 2023, while a scandalous firing of coach Mel Tucker earlier that year added a dour mood at Spartan Stadium. Hall stayed in 2024 or 2025, when head coach Jonathan Smith just didn’t quite get how important this game is to the program. When Fitzgerald took over as head coach, Hall was one of the most important pieces who stuck around. and he has been, even when he hasn’t played, for his leadership.
Those seniors won’t get to see the fruits of Fitzgerald’s tenure, whatever they may ripen to. Michigan State has to win its next three games to scrape by for bowl eligibility. The Spartans are a long way off from the Big Ten championship standards that Fitzgerald wants to enforce. That’s the baton for future teams to tote. Saturday’s win can only be a handoff. But MSU’s seniors did their part to get some momentum going. They’ll leave having made right on a rivalry that had eluded them for so long.
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“How important this game was for those guys,” Fitzgerald said. “To get Paul Bunyan back in East Lansing is for them.”
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Jordan Hall, MSU seniors finally get a ‘sentimental’ win over Michigan
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
