When people hear "Penn State vs. Michigan State," they shudder with awe. The pageantry. The emotion. The randomness.

For some reason, the Nittany Lions and the Spartans play every single year now, and every single year something that might be construed as rivalrous happens. (Yes, I made up that word. If people can invent arbitrary rivalries, then I can invent words.)

Some examples of the ridiculousness:

-- The longest punt ever by an opponent against Penn State (Spartans punter Craig Jarrett's 81-yard kaboom in 1998).

-- Four of the largest losing point differentials in Lions history came at the hands of the Spartans (33-0 in 1945, 42-8 in 1966, 49-14 in 1997 and 41-10 in 2003).

-- The Lions and the Spartans' combined point total average is 66 points, and only twice was a team able to win when scoring less than 35 points.

As if that wasn't enough to convince you of the enormity of this game's nonsensical grandeur, there's also the unofficial "Ugliest Trophy in NCAA Div. I College Football" at stake. It's only fitting that two universities originally founded to make farmers less dumb would fight over a large and unrefined block of wood.

It's cool, though. Alan Zemaitis is pumped up.

"We look at it as some of the hardware that we need to get back in our house," Zemaitis said. "We collected that bell from Minnesota, and now the Land Grant Trophy -- we want to keep that in our house."

The Governor's Victory Bell now resides back in the Lasch Football Building, close to where the Land Grant has been chillin' for the past year.

"Any hardware that we're trying to get, we're going get," Zemaitis said.

This rivalry is like the French and Indian War. It's a rivalry because someone said it was once, even though both teams are allied against a common enemy: Michigan and the British.

Both of these teams pretty much like each other. Lions quarterback Michael Robinson was recruited by the Spartans and said he still keeps in touch with a few seniors who were recruited there with him.

In fact, when there wasn't a lot of conference lovin' at first for the Lions and coach Joe Paterno after they joined the Big Ten, it was Michigan State who rolled out the welcome mat.

"[Then-Spartans coach George] Perles called me up," Paterno said. "In fact, he was on the field. I think he was coaching the Hula Bowl game. He said, 'Joe, why don't we make the Penn State game the one game we play every year at the end of the year and it's a big game?' "

Paterno thought about the offer and accepted it.

"I go back to when we played Michigan State before I got here back in '48 or '49 they played," he said. "When we played in '54 or '55 when Duffy Doherty was the assistant coach and, as my wife used to call him, Buggy Munn, when Biggie Munn was the head coach and they were undefeated. We played them in '54 and '55 when they were undefeated and had good games."

Ergo, here it is 50 years later and the Capricious Bowl is entering its 13th year of regular recurrence, which means something wacky is going to take place.

This is a guarantee.