That MSU team was all paid-for talent, too. In Walter Byers' book, he relates how MSU joined the Big Ten and got competitive quickly by using a slush fund to buy talent, justifying it by claiming Michigan, et. al. had a 50 year head start on them. This was all part of then-president Hannah's goal of turning the agriculture college into a major world university in a couple years. (MSU also produced this
cursed monstrosity during the 60's so we can blame them for Vietnam as well.)
I guess MSU football's recruiting slush fund was so blatant that ND, UM, and OSU all frequently complained to the NCAA and Big Ten conference. MSU eventually fessed up, and
was slapped with major sanctions in 1975 (interestingly, their wikipedia page makes no mention of it), and were under a Bowl ban for several years
In the book he says for whatever reason, the reporters covering MSU football only blamed OSU and specifically Woody Hayes for the hammer coming down. There were so many threats against his person that when OSU played in East Lansing in 1975, the Michigan State Police had to provide him with a security detail, and had one of their tallest officers escort him on to the field.
In the book he said when Woody came out of the tunnel, all of Spartan Stadium started booing him, and he turned to the state trooper, looked up and said something like "Seems like they really hate you for some reason"
OSU won 21-0. that was also the last time Woody was "witty" on the field and not a raving lunatic, punching players, tearing up markers and threatening officials.
Sorry for leaving this in the ND sucks thread, but maybe it's fitting because ND likes to pretend their MSU rivalry is such a big deal, to downplay their record in the rivalry against us.