Audio and more: Talking tunnel assault on The Huge Show, Howard Griffith on Michigan State ‘acting like [they’re] in the streets,’ more
Michigan hammered Michigan State, 29-7, Saturday night in Ann Arbor, dominating in the trenches and blowing the Spartans out in the second half. The MSU players didn’t take it well, “assaulting” U-M cornerbacks Gemon Green and Ja’Den McBurrows in the postgame tunnel, in head coach Jim Harbaugh’s words.
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Afterwards, some in the Michigan State media tried to paint Michigan as the instigator or blow it off as “no big deal.” One even blamed Harbaugh in suggesting his actions over the last few years had something to do with it.
We addressed that nonsense today on The Huge Show with Bill Simonson:
CHRIS BALAS TALKS MICHIGAN – MSU TUNNEL INCIDENT ON THE HUGE SHOW
Nobody outside East Lansing was buying it, either. The Big Ten Network’s Howard Griffith was especially harsh on the Spartans. Four players have been suspended, and judging by the recently released video, several more could be, as well.
“Just from what I saw in the videos — charges should be pressed,” Griffith said. “This is unacceptable … outrageous. I look at it from this perspective — you talk about a bar fight. That was the streets on a football field. And it has no place, because things can get really bad when you start talking about being in the streets and acting like you’re in the streets.
“Because there are some people who would have handled that a lot differently, and it wouldn’t have been handled in the tunnel. It would be taken out of the hands of let’s say the administrators, and it would be street justice from what I watched. That was problematic, and there’s no place for it. Both coaches, both institutions, know that. And you can’t blame a head coach. You can’t blame a tunnel. None of that.”
Griffith played for Illinois, and he said he never experienced an incident close to that.
“I understand that when you’re running into a tunnel — I’ve run into many of them — there are heated words that go back and forth,” he said. “But this was so far over the line that there’s no explanation for it. There are even Michigan State players on the team that are looking at it, and you look at them and they’re like, ‘is this really happening?’”
BTN’s Dave Revsine shut down any talk about the one tunnel being to blame, as some have tried to use to excuse it.
“The notion that somehow the tunnel is to blame — and I know we’ve had a lot of tunnel talk here the last few weeks — this stadium is 100 years old,” Revsine said. “It’s completely absurd. People have been walking through that joint tunnel for over a century now, and they’re not beating each other over the head with helmets.”
