In past years, the Michigan vs. Michigan State game has carried significant consequences. That will not be the case in 2026.
The rivalry matchup arrives as part of a loaded Week 10 slate across college football, but with the Pat Fitzgerald era off to a 2-6 start for the Spartans, and the Kyle Whittingham era off to a 5-3 start for the Wolverines, there’s not much on the line.
Fans attending the game — or even just tailgating outside of it — will have a rather interesting opportunity, though: donating some urine to research.
Here’s why fans’ urine is being collected at Michigan vs. Michigan State on Saturday.
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Why fans’ urine is being collected at Michigan-Michigan State rivalry game
According to The Athletic, researchers from both Michigan and Michigan State will be collecting urine from tailgaters as part of an event called “The Piss Off,” which is being coordinated by Michigan’s Nutrient-Energy-Water (N-E-W) Cycles Group.
There will be two donation stations with standing urinals outside of the game; they will be at Ann Arbor Golf & Outing Club across from gates 2 and 4 at Michigan Stadium, according to the University of Michigan.
The urine collected will be pasteurized to create a “6x concentrate using a patented freeze-thaw process,” according to the event’s site, and nutrients will then be isolated, “turning phophorus and potassium into solid struvite” fertilizer pellets that will be applied to plants at Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum and Michigan State’s W.K. Kellogg Biological Station.
“The Piss Off is our first stadium-scale pilot in the United States: a home game tailgate’s worth of urine donations, turned into usable fertilizers,” the event’s site reads. “Your urine donations are transformed into fertilizers for our research collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU).”
The site also says that it hopes “to expand to sitting [urinal] options in the future.”
Michigan’s Urine Processing Room is able to process 50 liters of urine per day, per The Athletic, while producing 150 to 200 pounds of nitrogen per year.
The donation stations at Michigan Stadium will reportedly be open from 1 p.m. ET until the conclusion of the game, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m. ET.
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