Watch Michigan Vs. Michigan State Football Live Online: Start Time, Streaming Video For Saturday’s Rivalry Game

Fans can watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game live online and see if the upstart Spartans can upend Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines.

The teams will meet Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET from Michigan Stadium. The game will be broadcast on ESPN, but those unable to get to a television will also be able to watch live streaming video (link below).

For the Spartans, the game is a chance to prove themselves as national championship contenders.

“I think every football team that goes out there, I don’t care where they’re at, they expect to win,” Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said (via ESPN). “The expectations are high at Michigan State, the expectations are high down the road.”

But fans who watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game live online will see what many think will be a tight affair. Michigan, despite being ranked below Michigan State in polls, is favored by a touchdown at home. New coach Jim Harbaugh has the team back on track in his first season, and now will have to face a Spartans team off to their best start since 2010.

Harbaugh is doing his best to downplay the hype surrounding the game, though he did acknowledge seeing countdown clocks for the game on campus.

“I’m sure there’s gonna be attempts to build the game up, etc.,” he said. “But we’re working, and not worrying. Have a chance to hear what’s out there, but we’ve just been going about our business.”

“Winning the next game is the goal,” he added. “That’s the most important thing. There’s nothing more important than that.”

Fans who watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State game live online will see what could be the Wolverines’ most important test in years. The game will help determine if the gains under Harbaugh are for real, and if the team has made what looks to be an improbable jump from mediocrity to a national contender in just a short time.

Michigan would seen to have an edge in the matchup. The Wolverines have won 11 of their last 14 meetings against the Spartans at home and leads the overall series by a 68-34-5 margin.

The rise of both programs has another effect on one of college football’s best rivalries. The programs had been at different points for most of the past years, leading to a matchup that few outside of Michigan cared about.

Rolling Stone writer Michael Weinrab noted that has changed now, with the rise of both the Wolverines and Spartans creating a stronger Big 10.

“But now there are potentially three elite Big Ten teams. In his first season at Michigan, Jim Harbaugh has inspired such a striking revival that the Wolverines haven’t allowed a single point to an opponent in their past three games; the Wolverines look so sharp at the moment that it’s not difficult to imagine that Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State are now engaged in a round-robin to determine which Big Ten team will land a spot in the College Football Playoff. And it begins this Saturday, when the seventh-ranked Spartans travel to Ann Arbor to face a 12th-ranked Wolverines team that suddenly seems capable of virtually anything.”

The players are getting into the rivalry as well. Michigan State linebacker Riley Bullough said it is “crazy” in the state this week, with battle lines being drawn between Spartans fans and Wolverines fans.

“You literally identify yourself as part of the blue and maize or the green and white. That’s your identity, that’s your everything,” he said.

Fans who want to watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State football game live online can click here for streaming video through WatchESPN.

[Picture by Leon Halp/Getty Images]