The Harbaugh Rivalry Everybody Should Be Excited For

For all intents and purposes, Jim Harbaugh has been well behaved since taking over as Michigan's head coach in December 2014.

Sure, there's been the occasional alleged subtweet directed toward a rival coach, and his Summer Swarm satellite tour didn't exactly sit well in the south, but other than that, any noise that's come from the first-year Wolverines coach has come with the purpose of promoting his football program.

That's rung true through Michigan's first six games of the 2015 season, with the Wolverines ranking 12th in the most recent Associated Press Top 25 after a surprising 5-1 start to the year.

But given Harbaugh's track record, which has included well-documented on-field flareups with opposing coaches, it only seems like a matter of time before his fiery personality causes a clash with one of his new Big Ten adversaries.

And while many have anticipated that it would be Ohio State's Urban Meyer who would be the spark that ignited Harbaugh's first Big Ten fireworks, fans may not have to wait until that November matchup to see something similar to Harbaugh's past dust-ups with Pete Carroll and Jim Schwartz.

That's because Mark Dantonio has never been one to take a backseat. Yet despite being undefeated and ranked seventh in the country, his Michigan State squad finds itself as an underdog heading into its forthcoming contest with the Wolverines.

It's a position the Spartans have preferred under the direction of their head coach, who has built his program into one of college football's best by making Michigan State feel as if it always has something to prove.

"It doesn't take much to put a chip on our shoulder," Spartans quarterback Connor Cook said Monday. "It doesn't matter if we're favored or we're the underdog. We're going to go into each game with the underdog mentality."

And when you pit a coach with a fuse as short as Harbaugh's against a team with an edge like Michigan State's, it could very well make for a combustible combination Saturday out on the field in Ann Arbor.

While each coach has made all the politically correct statements about the other in the buildup, the first sign Harbaugh and Dantonio might mix like oil and water came in December, shortly after it was announced that the former San Francisco 49ers head coach would be taking over at his alma mater.

It took just two questions during Dantonio's pre-Cotton Bowl press conference for him to dismiss any further questions pertaining to his new rival in favor of sticking to his preferred script of just speaking of his own program.

"I'll just have to say this is about Michigan State: This is about the Cotton Bowl," Dantonio said. "And we're going to stay right there."

Days later, Dantonio relented: "We compete against Michigan regardless of who's there on a daily basis. We understand that here."

Mel Evans/Associated Press

It would've been naive for Dantonio to think he could have avoided talking about Michigan's new head coach until he had actually played him, but little did he know his first run-in with a Harbaugh in 2015 wouldn't be with Jim. Rather, it was Harbaugh's son and Wolverines tight end coach, Jay Harbaugh, who fired the first shot from Ann Arbor to East Lansing this year, responding to a comment from the Spartans head coach that while "other people are selling hope" on the recruiting trail, "right now, we're selling results."

The thinly veiled shot clearly didn't sit well with the younger Harbaugh, who took to Twitter respond:

That's what makes this new chapter of the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry so intriguing, as both programs now have coaches who have hardly made habits of biting their tongues. While Meyer may have remained tight-lipped this offseason, the attention Harbaugh was attracting to Ann Arbor seemed to irk Dantonio, which isn't all that surprising given his history when it comes to the Wolverines.

After all, it was just a year ago that perhaps the most telling tale of Dantonio's disdain for his in-state rival took place. When some Michigan players opted to stake a spear in the Spartan Stadium field during pregame warm-ups before the battle between the two teams, Dantonio took exception, calling out the Wolverines in his postgame press conference after what was ultimately a 35-11 Michigan State victory.

He also let it be known it wasn't a coincidence the Spartans chose to score a touchdown with 28 seconds left in the game when running the clock out would have sufficed in what would be then-Michigan head coach Brady Hoke's final appearance in the battle for the Paul Bunyan Trophy.

"You might as well come out and say what you’re really feeling at some point in time, because I can only be diplomatic for so long," Dantonio said. "Throwing the stake down in our back yard out here, coming out here like they’re all that, it got shoved up their...it got shoved the last minute-and-a-half, and we’re not going to pull off of that."

That was a last year, though, and for the most part, Dantonio has said all the right things—when he's said anything at all—about the Wolverines' new regime. The same could be said of Harbaugh, although both were noticeably brief in their respective praising of one another.

Carlos Osorio/Associated Press

"Yeah, we met. We talked. [It's] been very collegial, professional," Harbaugh said of Dantonio Monday. "[I] have the utmost respect for him and the job he’s done."

"I got a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Harbaugh, what he's accomplished in his career, and what he's accomplishing now," Dantonio said Tuesday.

But while neither coach has said much of substance—the lone exception being Harbaugh quoting The Lion King in reference to Michigan State winning six of its past seven meetings with Michigan—both Harbaugh and Dantonio have track records that indicate bad blood is possible, if not likely, down the road.

Whether it will come to fruition this weekend remains to be seen. But there is no shortage of reasons to explain why Saturday's battle between the Wolverines and Spartans, from pregame warm-ups to postgame handshakes, is college football's must-watch matchup.

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.