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The battle for the Paul Bunyan trophy went down in Ann Arbor on Saturday night as the Michigan football team hosted in-state rival Michigan State. It was a great game as it came down the final minutes, and the Wolverines ended up earning a 24-17 win. Unfortunately, there was a scuffle that broke out on the field between the two teams after the game, and the Big Ten has been looking into the incident.
Michigan's Colston Loveland and Michigan State's Anthony James got into it on the final play of the game. Michigan was taking a knee as the game was over, and James pushed Loveland's head back when the ball was snapped. The game was over, hence the knee being taken, so Loveland wasn't happy about that and he got in James' face. It looked like typical jawing back and forth between rivals. So, who started the Michigan Michigan State fight? It looked like things escalated when James grabbed Loveland's head and tried to pull him to the ground.
Both teams got into it after that, and Michigan State wanted the Big Ten to review the situation to see if Michigan running back Kalel Mullings was at fault for anything during the scuffle. The Spartans didn't come forward and say that anyone was affected by anything that Mullings did, but they did request the Big Ten to look at it. The conference released a statement saying that they were unable to find anything, and there will be no punishments for either team.
“The Big Ten Conference thoroughly reviewed video of the incident that occurred at the conclusion of Saturday's Michigan-Michigan State football game,” The statement read. “Amidst the confrontation, student-athletes from both teams were on the ground and surrounded by so many individuals that both players were completely obscured from view. The video review was inconclusive as to whether individual discipline was appropriate for anyone in the immediate vicinity of the two players who were on the ground. While the confrontation was a disappointing conclusion to the contest, the Conference appreciates the efforts made by staff from both teams, security personnel, and game officials to rapidly de-escalate the incident, as well as the responses by both head coaches. The Big Ten discussed the situation with both institutions and determined that no further action will be taken.”
A couple of media members that attended the game have claimed to have spoken to police officers that were on the field about Mullings and his involvement in the situation.
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“I talked to a police officer who was in the middle of it,” Michigan radio broadcaster Doug Karsch said. “That officer said it was your typical football fight — lots of jawing, pushing and shoving. He was laughing about it.”
“Just spoke with a Michigan source with knowledge of the Michigan-MSU skirmish,” Trevor Woods said in a post. “Kalel Mullings was trying to break up a Michigan State and Michigan player going at it. Multiple police officers witnessed Mullings trying to be the peacekeeper. Didn't ‘stomp' on anyone.”
No one has come forward and said that Mullings stomped on them, and no one around the situation has said anything about seeing Mullings stomp on anyone.
It's good to see that the situation was handled quickly and it didn't get out of hand, and nothing happened that warranted a punishment.
