Brawl breaks out after South Alabama victory over Eastern Michigan in Ventures Bowl
South Alabama defeated Eastern Michigan 59-10 Saturday night in the 68 Ventures Bowl but it ended in a brawl.
While the Jaguars sang their fight song with the band, an Eastern Michigan player came up and sucker punched a South Alabama player. From there, a brawl between the two squads broke out in an ugly scene after the game.
The chaos can be seen in the videos below.
Right now, it is unclear who started the brawl for Eastern Michigan, but he wore No. 5 in the video and there are two No. 5’s on the EMU roster.
Regardless, he slugged South Alabama defensive back Jamarrien Burt in the head while his back was turned, starting the brawl.
South Alabama coach Kane Wommack was asked about the incident following the win.
“This is a very special game, it’s a hard game,” Wommack said, via AL.com. “It’s a team game and you do everything you can on a football field to be the best for your teammates. And at times, things get emotional and they get passionate and we ask these guys to play on the line of that emotion and passion in every single way. Those are never things that you want to end a game with.
“We will certainly take ownership of our part. We will look and find out exactly what happened. I couldn’t tell you exactly what did. I’ll get more information as we go. … We’re going to win, but it’s also how we win. And so we want to make sure that we hold people accountable to the standard that we want to operate, in the way we want to represent the city of Mobile and the University of South Alabama.”
Unfortunately for both sides, it wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the outburst.
“Those will be things that we’ll get to the bottom of, but this is a night to really be proud of the things that we’ve accomplished and the young men that do things the right way,” Wommack said. “And that’s why we’re here.”
Eastern Michigan coach Chris Creighton was also asked about the postgame brawl.
“I didn’t see things when they happened,” Creighton said. “But I definitely saw the intensity of what had just happened. We had a really good, long talk in the locker room afterwards. We want to be first-class all the time, no matter the circumstances, no matter what the scoreboard is, no matter what other factors, people, whatever are involved. And anything short of being first-class is not living up to the standard that we have in Eastern Michigan football.
“I think that our guys care a lot about performing well. I’m sure we were embarrassed by how we played and it probably didn’t take too much to get our guys into a place that we hope that they never get.”