ANN ARBOR, Mich. – A group of Michigan State players appeared to attack at least one Michigan player in the Michigan Stadium tunnel on Saturday night after Michigan beat Michigan State at the Big House.
UPDATE: Michigan State football suspends 4 players after 2 Michigan players attacked in tunnel
Video posted by several reporters showed about a dozen Spartan players scuffling with at least one Michigan player in the post-game tunnel.
Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh spoke about the ugly incident after the game.
“Two of our players were assaulted. I saw the one video, it’s 10-on-one. Pretty bad,” Harbaugh said before being joined by Michigan AD Warde Manuel.
“I’m going to let our Athletic Director address it with the authorities. Looks pretty open and shut. One of our players has a nasal injury, could be a broken nose. Just very unfortunate,” Harbaugh added.
“For the other team to grab a player and do what they did, it’s completely and utterly unacceptable. This is not what a rivalry should be about and not how it should be remembered. I’ll leave it to law enforcement to handle from here on out,” Manuel said.
Manuel said police saw the video and are investigating. The players involved were not identified.
Michigan State coach Mel Tucker said he didn’t know what happened in the tunnel and offered no comment.
“I know it was a heated game. Things were heated. We’re trying to get our guys in the locker room. We’re gonna have to figure out what happened,” Tucker said.
On Sunday, Michigan State University President Stanley President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., released a statement about the incident. It can be read below.
Below are a few tweets from Coach Mel Tucker on the incident:
As Spartans our program has a responsibility to uphold the highest level of sportsmanship. While emotions were very high at the conclusion of our rivalry game at Michigan Stadium, there is no excuse for behavior that puts our team or our opponents at risk.
— Mel Tucker (@Coach_mtucker) October 30, 2022
In complete cooperation with law enforcement, the Big Ten Conference and MSU and UM leadership, we will evaluate the events in Ann Arbor and take swift and appropriate action.
— Mel Tucker (@Coach_mtucker) October 30, 2022
Below is a statement from the University of Michigan’s president Santa J. Ono
.@MichiganStateU President Samuel Stanley and @UMichPrezOno are in strong agreement that the behavior following last night's game is unacceptable. We are cooperating fully with investigations and are committed to ensuring such a situation does not occur again in the future. pic.twitter.com/dNFxBPRvbJ
— University of Michigan (@UMich) October 30, 2022
The University of Michigan is partnering up with Michigan State University Police and the University of Michigan Athletics to investigate the post-game incident. The University of Michigan police asks that if anyone has any information regarding the incident, please contact Detective Lieutenant Paul DeRidder at paulderi@umich.edu.