“It’s really exciting (to face Nebraska),” junior heavyweight Steve Andrus said. “Any time you welcome a new team, you want to give them some lumps and make sure they feel it. That’s kind of the idea.”

No. 11 senior 174-pounder Curran Jacobs shared Andrus’ sentiment and said that he is looking forward to “introducing them to the ways of MSU wrestling.”

Andrus is returning to dual competition after stepping aside for the past couple weekends while No. 18 sophomore heavyweight Mike McClure took the lead. However, Andrus isn’t concerned about having to shake off a little rust before his match.

“I’ve been practicing a lot, I’ve been in the room working hard … I feel good, and I’m ready to get back on the mat,” he said.

Head coach Tom Minkel has been forced to tinker with his lineup all season but said it’s getting closer to where he needs it to be. Senior 184-pounder Ian Hinton will return to the lineup, and Minkel said he’s feeling confident that his current lineup is poised to compete.

Nebraska is coming off a pair of weekend wins, while the Spartans (3-6 overall, 1-4 Big Ten) are still reeling from losses at No. 6 Illinois and No. 18 Northwestern. However, Minkel said although the Spartans lost the duals, they came out of the state of Illinois with additional confidence.

“We fought real well, we wrestled real well and came out of it with the feeling that we can compete with some of the better teams in the country,” Minkel said of his team’s weekend losses. “So we’re going into this weekend trying to capture what we took away from that dual and take it into this upcoming dual this weekend.”

Once the Nebraska dual is in the books, the Spartans have a quick turnaround before traveling to take on the Wolverines at Cliff Keen Arena. As with any MSU sport, the in-state rivalry is just as intense on the mat as it is anywhere else.

The Wolverines currently hold the edge over MSU in the series, 36-62-5, but when it comes to Michigan, the Spartans will be in top form.

“I love being in unfamiliar territory, behind enemy lines,” Jacobs said. “It feels great. There’s no pressure at all. It’s all on them; it’s on their home mat, and there’s nothing better than taking out one of their own in their home town.”

Minkel said the intensity of the Michigan dual comes not only from the mutual hatred the two schools have for each other but also from the wrestlers having faced each other for years before choosing their respective universities.

“They went to high school together, facing each other in the conference or the state title, so you have some rivalries that go back to when they were kids,” he said.

For Jacobs — who finds himself ranked for the first time this season after four consecutive match wins — the only fuel he needs came from a match earlier this year, when he dropped an 8-5 decision against Michigan’s No. 5 Justin Zeerip at home during the MSU Open.

“A win would feel great, especially with it being Michigan,” Jacobs said as a smile crept across his face. “He took me out earlier in the year, so a little Spartan revenge sounds pretty good.”