How Michigan vs. Michigan State Has Become the Big Ten's Most Heated Rivalry

The question was coming. That was never in doubt.

The only suspense was how Mark Dantonio would respond.

The Michigan State head coach was making his appearance on the Big Ten coaches spring teleconference, as all coaches in the conference's East Division were required to do on Thursday.

While Dantonio was asked several expected questions about the progress of his team and the shifting perception of the Big Ten, it was a question unrelated to football that had the media—and Twitter—waiting with bated breath.

What did the notoriously fiery coach think of the recently vandalized Spartan statue on the MSU campus?

For any other coach, the question may have never even be asked, with a "kids will be kids" answer expected—if not guaranteed. But this was the Spartan statue defaced with rival Michigan's colors and block 'M' logo, and this was Dantonio, who has a history of not putting up with nonsense from the Wolverines.

However, he didn't take the bait.

"I guess there's always little things that get to you one way or the other," he said. "We all have our issues to deal with."

For Dantonio, this answer was unexpected and somewhat deflating, as it was just six months ago that he both voiced and showed displeasure with Michigan linebacker Joe Bolden for planting a spear in Spartan Stadium in the moments leading up to the kickoff between the two teams on Oct. 25.

The Spartans went on to win by a score of 35-11, opting to score a touchdown with 28 seconds remaining when they just as easily could have run out the clock.

As its head coach explained, Michigan State's late touchdown wasn't coincidental.

"It just felt like we needed to put a stake in them at that point," Dantonio said. "I can only be diplomatic for so long. The 'little brother' stuff, all the disrespect, it doesn't have to go in that direction. We try to handle ourselves with composure. That doesn't come from the coach. That comes from the program.

"Throwing the stake down here in our backyard and coming out here like they're all that, it got shoved up—it got shoved that last minute-and-a-half, and we were not gonna pull off of that."

Al Goldis/Associated Press

Then-Wolverines head coach Brady Hoke issued an apology the following day but would go on to lose his job at the end of the year following his team's 5-7 season.

Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon resigned just a few days following the Wolverines' loss to Michigan State—their sixth defeat in seven years to their in-state rival—but despite Dantonio downplaying this week's vandalism, the battle for the Paul Bunyan Trophy has far from lost its luster lately.

In fact, the rivalry has only intensified recently, as most things do when Jim Harbaugh gets added to the mix.

Ever since he arrived as Michigan's new head coach at the end of 2014, most of the headlines about Harbaugh's addition to rivalries have pertained Ohio State.

While the dynamic between Harbaugh and Urban Meyer—two of the highest-profile football coaches of this generation—is certainly fascinating, it may not ultimately make as much noise as the Harbaugh-Dantonio battles to come.

Though Meyer typically handles disagreements with coaches diplomatically—at least publicly—Harbaugh, like Dantonio, isn't one to back down in any forum. In recent years, the former Stanford and San Francisco 49ers head coach has had public spats with Pete Carroll and Jim Schwartz, both of which instantly went viral:

Harbaugh, for his part, has steered clear of any controversy since joining the Big Ten, not even referring to Ohio State as just "Ohio" like Hoke used to. Dantonio, too, has yet to stoke any flames in the months since Harbaugh's hiring.

"It is as it is. It always has been, it always will be. It just didn't start today or a couple months ago. It's been an ongoing thing, so we approach it like that daily," he said when asked about the Michigan State-Michigan rivalry. "We didn't start this. This has been in existence for a long time."

Maybe so, but for the first time in its existence, the battle between the Spartans and Wolverines features the two most combustible coaches in the conference.

And although Thursday's teleconference may not have been worth the wait, make no mistake: The first meeting between Dantonio and Harbaugh on Oct. 17 will be.

Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten Lead Writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. All statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com. Recruiting rankings courtesy of 247Sports.