The rivalry in Michigan men's gymnastics is back.

Not Michigan vs. Ohio State — Maize vs. Blue.

The Wolverines hold an intrasquad at Cliff Keen Arena each December, with each side gunning for bragging rights.

Last year, Maize gymnasts replaced “blue” with “maize” in all the usual Michigan cheers. Many Maize team members refused to wear blue shorts or t-shirts to practice for weeks. The Blue team appeared at practice one day and whipped off their Michigan fleeces in unison to reveal iron-on team t-shirts that said, “What did you do to beat Maize today?”

The rivalry will continue on Saturday, when senior co-captain Phil Goldberg leads the Blue team in search of its first victory since 2005. Maize already has one advantage — because Goldberg picked first when the squads were drafted, junior co-captain David Chan’s crew will compete in Olympic order, the normal rotation of events. Blue will follow Olympic “disorder,” meaning events like floor and vault, which often feature the same gymnasts, will not have any break between them.

Many of last year's Blue gymnasts maintain the complicated scoring process was the key to Maize's victory. The coaches will use it again this time: they will determine the average score from every routine on an apparatus, then multiply that number by four to calculate the event total. Normally, just the top four marks on each apparatus count toward the team score.

The intrasquad will offer the first look for fans at a team that finished in sixth place at the NCAA Championships in April. Last year's team usually finished workouts and was out of the gym by 6 p.m. each day. Now, it’s typical to see half the team still practicing at 7 p.m., working on new skills as well as strength and conditioning programs.

For the only time all year, Michigan coach Kurt Golder won’t have to worry about lineup constraints. This offseason, collegiate coaches across the board supported expanding the competition limit to 15 men from 12. But the NCAA shot the modification down.

Golder said he was “very disappointed” in that decision. For one night, at least, the only restriction on Michigan will be how many men can compete in each event. And the coaching staff has high expectations, especially for the freshmen and the four sophomores coming off redshirt seasons.

For Michigan’s two freshmen, Syque Caesar and Douglass Johnson, the Maize and Blue will mark their first competition as college gymnasts.

“We’ll get to see how the freshmen are as competitors,” senior Ralph Rosso said. “There may be some surprises, which would be great.”

The last time Michigan fans saw sophomores Devan Cote, Steve Crabtree, Adam Hamers and Andrew Vance was at last year's intrasquad, when they’d only been Wolverines for three and a half months. All of them have added significant difficulty to their routines and will add extra fire to the this year's meet.

Twenty-two gymnasts from last year’s 24-man team are back, and with the changes made to the gymnastics Code of Points, routine upgrades will be rampant at Cliff Keen. Every member of the team has added at least one more difficult skill to his repertoire.

With so many new skills, safety on regulation equipment may be an issue. In the week leading up to the competition, each athlete must demonstrate to one of the coaches that he can safely perform all his planned skills without the extra padding available at the practice gym.

The intrasquad won’t directly determine which gymnasts compete in the season-opening Windy City Invitational on Jan. 17, especially since Michigan has been holding its own informal intrasquads for more than a month at practice. But it will be one more opportunity for the gymnasts to place themselves in pressure situations and gauge their responses.

“We’ve been focused on putting ourselves in pressure situations a lot more frequently,” said senior Scott Bregman, who will be on the Blue team for the fourth straight year. “We’ll be so used to raising our hand and having every single person watching you and being evaluated by the coaches.”