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Some rivalries are in name only. But that's not the case when the Michigan State and Michigan football teams play. So when the two teams began fighting at the end of yesterday's Wolverines win, it wasn't surprising, even if it was disappointing to first-year Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore.
In the closing moments of Michigan's 24-17 home win over its rival, some pushing and shoving led to some punches being thrown. While UM tight end Colston Loveland mocked MSU by saying “little bro stays doing little bro things,” Moore, as the head coach, directed his frustration toward his own team.
“I told the team that was unacceptable,” Moore said, via The Associated Press.
Moore's counterpart, Michigan State first-year coach Jonathan Smith, said, “You don't love finishing kind of that way.”
Despite how it ended, the most important thing for Michigan is that it, indeed, ended as a Wolverines victory. Saturday's win marks Michigan's third in a row and fifth in seven years vs. MSU, which won 8 of 10 meetings from 2008 to 2017.
The victory would also seem to give Michigan a path forward offensively after multiple frustrating weeks in a row. After beating USC in run-first quarterback Alex Orji's first start, the Wolverines struggled in a near collapse vs. Minnesota before losing on the road at Washington and at Illinois.
Between those two games, Michigan scored 24 combined points as Moore made another change at QB; during the loss to Washington, he benched Orji in favor of Jack Tuttle. For the Michigan State game, Moore opted to return to Davis Warren, who began the season as the starter before being benched following an abysmal performance vs. Arkansas State in which he threw for only 122 yards and tossed 3 interceptions.
Warren proved to be the right option for one week at least vs. MSU, though; against the Spartans, he passed for 123 yards and, most importantly, did not turn the ball over.
Michigan and whichever quarterback Moore decides to start — Warren, Orji, and Tuttle have each started at least one game this season — will face its biggest test of the year to this point next week when the Wolverines host No. 1 Oregon, which has already beaten UM archrival Ohio State and crushed Michigan State and Illinois, the latter of which beat Michigan last week 21-7.
