Symbolism can be found in the Anchor Bone Trophy first being used to represent the Ferris State-Grand Valley State football rivalry in 2002. That was the first season in which one of the two programs claimed the NCAA Div. II national championship, with a combined six titles won between the Bulldogs and Lakers in two decades since. 

The Anchor Bone Classic goes back much further than the 2002 season, however — more than a half-century, in fact. From humble origins more than 50 years ago, it's grown into one of the most exciting rivalries in all of college football. 

It would have been difficult to imagine that becoming the case back in 1972, however. 

Thirty years before the Anchor Bone Trophy was conceived,  Ferris State walloped GVSU in a 42-0 blowout. In the first two meetings between the programs — which were also the first two seasons GVSU fielded a varsity team — the Bulldogs won by a combined score of 99-0. 

By 1973, however, the vision for a successful fledgling Lakers program began to take shape. GVSU ended its nomadic ways, having played all of its 1971 and 1972 schedule on the road due to not having a home stadium, and played its first-ever home games. 

That included a rematch with Ferris State. The Bulldogs won again, but the 17-13 final score offered the first foreshadowing of a rivalry characterized by competitive games. 

The near-comeback GVSU mounted that day reflected a comment first-year head coach Jim Harkema made to the Detroit Free Press earlier in the season. 

"There is not going to be anyone in this state who is going to wipe us out," he said. 

Instead, it was GVSU that started to wipe out its competition — including Ferris State in a role-reversal contest in 1975. 

The Lakers won a 38-0 rout over Ferris State that season in a game that included two GVSU touchdowns scored on fumble recoveries in the end zone: one by Tim Maki, the other by Levi Hirsch. 

Ferris State exacted revenge in a much more competitive matchup the following season, and could perhaps be considered the true beginning of the Anchor Bone Classic as a rivalry. 

1976

Freshman kicker Danny Delamarter booted through a 50-yard field goal as time expired to give Ferris State a 26-23 win on a day that special teams otherwise could have been the story for more negative reasons. 

Delamarter missed a PAT attempt earlier in the game, which could have been particularly vexing for the Bulldogs — had Roger McCoy's PAT kick on the ensuing GVSU touchdown run by Kurt Bultema not also missed. 

The 1976 edition of the series was the first of three decided by five points or fewer over the ensuing four meetings. Ferris State won each of the three single-possession finals in that run, with 11-7 and 14-9 victories in 1977 and 1979. Sandwiched between, however, was a 38-14 GVSU romp in the 1978 campaign when the Lakers made their first-ever postseason run. 

1982 

The circumstances setting the scene for GVSU kicker Randy Spangler's walk-off field goal in a 38-35 Lakers win made unfortunate foreshadowing. On a day when Jeff Chadwick caught a program-record four touchdown passes from quarterback Jim Lynch, GVSU very nearly let it slip away in the fourth quarter. 

Ferris State went on a furious rally with 22 points in the final period, fueling Bulldogs quarterback Steve Piotraczk's own record-setting day. He went 16-of-34 for 312 yards with three touchdowns and tied the game at 35. 

The unfortunate foreshadowing manifested the next week for GVSU, which surrendered 34 straight points in a 29-13 loss to Northern Michigan. The loss — GVSU's only setback in the GLIAC that season — cost the Lakers the conference championship. 

GVSU did not win a league title again until 1989, but the wait was worth it. The Lakers went to the NCAA Div. II Playoffs for the first time that season, and made the field four times in the next six years. 

Two of those appearances came under a young head coach named Brian Kelly. 

1993 and 1994 

Kelly took over at GVSU in 1991 and began a transformative tenure that culminated in back-to-back national championships. Before the Lakers assumed the throne of Div. II football, however, they had to endure some growing pains evident in Kelly's early years in the rivalry with Ferris State. 

Ferris State went 1-3-1 against GVSU in Kelly's first five seasons with the Lakers. Of no coincidence, this timeline overlaps with the Bulldogs' dominance of the Midwest Intercollegiate Football Conference. Ferris State won a share of five consecutive MIFC titles in the '90s, including four outright. 

In 1993, with both the Lakers and Bulldogs jockeying for MIFC positioning, both teams threw everything they had at each other — which, for GVSU, included an ill-fated fake punt in its own territory. 

"We thought we had to beat just one tackler. But Ferris made the play," Kelly told the Detroit Free Press after. 

The fake punt set up a short field and quick Ferris State touchdown in a game where points came at a premium, including Keith Loos' tying field goal in the final minute. The 17-17 tie was enough as the season went along to preserve Ferris State's place atop the MIFC and earn the Bulldogs their first outright conference title in program history. 

The next year, Ferris State won its second straight outright league crown in a breakout season for quarterback Bill Love — who threw for three touchdowns in a 27-21 Bulldogs win — and thanks to timely defensive plays. The most timely came courtesy of Joe Pappas, whose pick to end the game ended a week in which the Ferris State defensive back underwent a heart procedure. 

"It was amazing," Bulldogs coach Keith Otterbein told the Detroit Free Press. "He had heart surgery Tuesday, but he came back and practiced Thursday and played today." 

Ferris State won the 1995 matchup, 30-21, as part of its national breakout team that advanced to the semifinals of the NCAA Playoffs. 

1998

Eight years after its last outright conference championship, GVSU won its first of three under Kelly in 1998. The '98 MIFC crown — the last awarded before the return of GLIAC football in 1999 — was sealed in one of the all-time great Anchor Bone Classic showdown. 

Bulldogs quarterback Matt McCarthy, who set a variety of Ferris State records in the next year's installment of the Classic, threw a pair of first-half touchdown passes and ran for a score in the fourth quarter of the 1998 edition. 

His efforts helped give Ferris State a 22-point lead with 7:48 remaining. But a 92-yard touchdown return on the ensuing kickoff — the third kick taken to the house by Cook that season — began a furious GVSU rally that didn't relent through overtime. 

The Lakers won a 56-53 shootout in extra frames on the way to the NCAA Div. II Playoffs. The 1998 postseason appearance was the Lakers' first of four in Kelly's final six seasons at GVSU, culminating in their repeat national championships in 2002 and 2003. 

2002

The year in which the Anchor Bone Trophy was to be awarded for the first time in 2002, but the tragic death of Ferris State linebacker Matt Sklom resulted in the game's cancelation. The continuation of the series each year since is an opportunity to celebrate Sklom, described in a headline in the Sept. 13, 2002 edition of the Chicago Tribune as "A most valuable person." 

"It didn't matter if you were a great athlete or someone without great skills. He'd help anyone," Sklom's father, Michael, said to the Tribune. 

2012

From the first time the Anchor Bone Trophy was awarded in 2003 — a 40-10 GVSU win — the Lakers dominated the rivalry in resounding fashion. GVSU monopolized the Trophy through 2011, a run culminating in a 57-10 blowout. 

GVSU's uninterrupted possession of the Anchor Bone Trophy was part of a longer stretch of dominance in the Classic dating back to 2000. Beginning with a 21-20 thriller that year, scored on Lakers quarterback legend Curt Anes' touchdown pass to David Kircus, GVSU won every meeting until 2012. 

But Ferris State ended the streak and claimed the Anchor Bone Trophy for the first time behind an outstanding performance from quarterback Jason Vander Laan. The freshman rushed for 185 yards and two touchdowns to power the Bulldogs to a 40-24 victory. 

It was a fitting entry into the career one of the all-time great quarterbacks delivered in his two-time Harlon Hill Award-winning tenure at Ferris State. 

2018 

Another Harlon Hill Award-winning playmaker for Ferris State, Jayru Campbell, scored on a 31-yard reception with 3:11 remaining to cap one of the most exciting, back-and-forth editions of the Anchor Bone Classic in its half-century existence. 

Campbell rushed for a first-half touchdown in the win, as well. 

2022 

On the 20-year anniversary of the Anchor Bone Trophy being conceived, Ferris State and GVSU met twice. Fittingly, the two split the series with a pair of outstanding contests. 

The Lakers won the regular-season matchup for the Trophy, 22-21, thanks to a fourth-quarter rally from down 11 points. Jack Provencher's 10-yard touchdown run to cap an 83-yard drive, followed by the GVSU defense garnering a takeaway with Stephen Roncelli's forced fumble, secured the win. 

However, Ferris State exacted revenge in the Playoffs in another memorable matchup, 24-21. Carson Gulker's fourth-quarter touchdown run and an Eddie Jewett field goal with 64 seconds remaining on a snowy Saturday last December set the stage for the 2023 edition of the Anchor Bone Classic.