During a 2011 press conference, Michigan defensive lineman Ryan Van Bergen cracked a joke about The Little Brown Jug: “I don’t think you’d want to drink any water out of that.” True enough, but even if you wanted to take a swig, you’d be hard-pressed to make it happen. When I was doing my deep-dive Jug research a few years back, it was impossible to miss that the top is completely sealed off. There used to be a cap and some ribbons affixed to the spout, but at some point, they were removed—and from the looks of it, aggressively torn off. I once asked legendary equipment manager Jon Falk about it, and even Big House Jon wasn’t sure exactly when that happened. Today, it would take a flathead screwdriver and some serious pliers to pry that top open. You’d really have to want it. But why was the jug bought in the first place? Obviously, at one point, this simple piece of earthenware did carry water for the team, but the truth of how and why it ended up on the U-M sideline in 1903 has shifted a bit over the decades. In the early days of the rivalry, popular lore held that Michigan brought the jug and the water all the way from Ann Arbor. Furthermore, some suggested that…