First wishing you a happy birthday.
As for the game against Michigan St., I agree the chance of a victory is small, maybe 10%-15%.
Looking at top 50 away games going back to Hurley's first season we are 2 and 15 against top 50 (I took the liberty in including North Texas from last year who was ranked between 50-60 (so if you prefer to you can leave that game out). If you break that out for 26-50, UB is 2 - 8.
Currently Michigan St. is ranked around 50, so I think keeping the margin 10 points or less would be a good showing, and again would provide some optimism heading into MAC play.
Here is a plot of margin vs opponent rank / along with best result against top 50: