Who won the trade between Michigan and Michigan State football transfers?

May 17, 2024, will go down as one of the weirdest days in the history of the Michigan and Michigan State football rivalry. Players enter the transfer portal and commit to new schools all the time in this new era of college football, but rarely do they entertain committing to their former team's rival let alone actually commit to them.

That was not the case on Friday.

The fun began with former Spartan safety Jaden Mangham committing to Michigan, and for tracking purposes, this announcement was posted at 4:56 pm. Then just two hours and six minutes later at 7:02 pm, former Michigan linebacker Semaj Bridgeman committed to Michigan State.

This completed the strangest "trade" I have ever seen in college football.

Both players are solid in their own regard, but with their commitments coming hours apart it begs the question to be asked: Who won the trade between Michigan and Michigan State?

This may not be as easy of a question to answer as you might think

On paper, it seems pretty clear that Michigan is the winner of this trade. Mangham was one of the better players on Michigan State's team last season and Bridgeman never played one down for Michigan in his one season with the Wolverines. So if you look at next season alone, Michigan is undoubtedly the winner of this trade.

But if you look at this trade on a larger scale, I don't think it's as obvious. For starters, Mangham was a good player on a historically bad defense. So is it saying much that he was one of the better players on that team?

We also need to factor in the amount of time each player has left in their career. Mangham has two years max remaining in his college career while Bridgeman still has four. So it is very possible for Bridgeman to develop and grow into a much better player than Mangham.

So while Michigan is the obvious winner of this trade going into next season, I do think the argument exists that Michigan State could be the long-term winner of this trade. We won't be able to answer that question for a few more years, but you can't deny that it's a possibility.