Hi everybody!
I know content has been pretty sparse lately. Sorry about that… In case you’ve been living under an Iowa* for the last week, a thing happened Saturday before Halloween. Michigan played Michigan State at The Big House and, more importantly, I attended! It was the first time I had been to a game since the world tried to murder us all with pandemics and hornets and threats of nuclear war. So maybe it’s a renewed enthusiasm inspired by 110,000 of my closest friends, or maybe I’ve just been eating too much of my 4 year old daughter’s Halloween candy, but here we are. I’m pretty sure all of my reader(s) have been eliminated and are probably ignoring this by now but f*ck it. Let’s talk about stuff.
I bet I know what you’re thinking… There’s 3 games left in the regular season. Ohio State just played a close game with Northwestern. Michigan was losing to Rutgers at half time. This is going to be the obligatory “Everyone Sucks at Football”/”The Big Ten is bad” post. Well it’s a good thing you’re not actually reading this, because you’d be wrong! First of all, we haven’t even had the “The Big Ten is great and the SEC is overrated” post yet this year.**
(so… if you’re the type of person who reads footnotes last, don’t. Go read that one now or this post will be even more confusing than it already is).
Holy crap, you’re back? That was like 4 levels of footnote inception. They should make a special Pulitzer just for footnotes and I should win… Or there should just be a better way to write an article. Which there probably is. Which means this article sucks… Which *Spoiler Alert* contradicts the whole point of this article… Which is called Irony. Which means it IS good. Nailed it… Second of all,-good, we’re finally back on track – Second of all, I started writing this LAST week which means this article is about the Tunnel “Incident.” (Stick with me MSU fans… I cover both sides and I think it’s fair)
So let’s talk about what happened after the Michigan/Michigan State game last week. Two Michigan players, Gemon Green and Ja’Den McBurrows, were injured by some Michigan State players in the tunnel. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the week since that occurred, it’s this: As dumb and silly and bad and pointless as this blog is… Sometimes I’m incredibly better at this than the people who do it for a living. The takes I have heard or read from radio hosts, journalists, and idiots in comments sections over the last week have been embarrassing. From the Michigan State side, whataboutism, misdirection, victim blaming and, in some cases, even glorification, have unfortunately been a common sentiment since the event. I don’t care if you think Juwan Howard should have been fired or Donovan Edwards’s punishment wasn’t enough, or Harbaugh lets his players taunt too much******; Those have nothing to do with this situation. <dumb internet voice>That tunnel situation was a disaster waiting to happen. There have been 3 incidents in recent hist…</dumb internet voice> No. There has been one. The Tunnel has been around for 100 years and there has been one incident. Ohio State last year was people talking. That’s not an incident. Penn State at half time was more people talking and someone throwing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…. wait a minute… (checks the report)… correction: it was an Uncrustable…
This is a PB&J with no crust. To clarify, an already soft and squishy delicious treat was removed of its most ballistically significant feature, and then tossed at a fully “armored” individual. This was not an incident. The event in the tunnel after the Michigan vs Michigan State game was the only incident. How can you watch those videos and think that’s anything but assault? <dumb internet voice>”But what were those players doing in the tunnel?”</dumb internet voice> I’ve heard several explanations including “he had to poop”, “he was trying to catch up to a former teammate/friend on MSU”, “He was taunting MSU”. It doesn’t matter. 10 guys in helmets vs. 1 guy on the ground is not a fight, it’s a mugging. It’s the Foot Clan attacking April O’Neil in the subway. It doesn’t matter if you just got exposed as being “not very good.” You’re the ones committing a crime.
The Michigan side of the media isn’t without fault here either. I’ve seen a lot of “this is who they are.” “It’s a culture problem.” Some of these coming from sources that I read often and largely respect******* This isn’t fair. Not every player in those videos is at fault. We’re talking about 8-10 out of 80. Xavier Henderson does try to break it up. Most walked by or stood around un-involved. Yes, you’d like to see a few more step up, but it’s a tall ask to expect 18-21 year old kids to react a certain way in real time. The nearby police officers who were hired specifically to prevent this type of incident certainly didn’t do any better. Michigan State does take more risks on players with potential behavioral issues. In some cases, giving these kids a chance (or second chance) is admirable. Eyabi Okie is a perfect example. In other cases, you end up with Frank Clark. Yes, MSU has had players that I thought were dirty. That doesn’t mean all (or even most) of them are. Having to rely so heavily on the transfer portal after Dantonio left probably didn’t help this season. These aren’t freshmen being molded into a strong existing culture, they’re older kids with their own problems coming into a program that’s struggling to rebuild.
MSU student culture, in my experience, is excellent. Attending games never feels unsafe, or in many cases, even unwelcoming which I don’t think is true for all venues/rivalries across the nation. I probably have more close friends and relatives who graduated from MSU than from U-M and our relationships are great (whether football is the topic or not). Yes, MSU’s administration, Athletic department, and medical trainers have had problems. So have Michigan’s. I don’t believe (fortunately) that this trickles down to a campus/student culture problem in either school.
Say what you want about Mel Tucker’s contract or his performance this year, but so far, his response to this has been about as good as either side could have reasonably expected. He didn’t say anything completely stupid in the press conference immediately after the incident. He relatively quickly suspended 8 players involved in the incident. He’s stated the organization is cooperating fully with law enforcement, both campuses, and the Big Ten. We’ll see how he/MSU follows through and what happens to those players long term but, so far, those are all the correct responses. He also took his team on the road and beat a ranked opponent the following week. Sure, Illinois may not be as good as expected, but that’s an impressive win either way.
So in the aftermath so far: Good job Mel Tucker/MSU. Media, do a better job. Or better yet, pay me to do a better job for you. That is the point of this article. See you all next time when hopefully I get to talk about actual football.
*For those of you unfamiliar with MgoBlog’s “Opponent Watch” segment, this year Iowa has been routinely designated “This team is as frightening as: The Rock.” It’s a giant boulder rolling towards a group of running tiny people. Yes, it’s a little scary because if it you get caught underneath you will be squished worse than PB&J sandwich skipping into the Michigan Tunnel, but if you just step a few feet out of its direct and easily identifiable path, you get to watch a cool looking rock roll harmlessly by.. 
**to be fair, I think these posts were combined with the U-M/MSU and Hockey posts last year… it was a good post.. you should re-read it so I get the extra clicks***
***There is no ad-revenue on this site because I’m terrible at business. Clicks don’t matter. You thought this site was about football but really it’s just me trying to preserve the internet of the early 00’s. I pay significant amounts of money so you don’t have to see “angelfire.com” banners all over this bitch.****
****Side note, because why not delay the real topic of the article and get really in the weeds here (the order in which this article was written is more complex than a 90’s B movie involving time travel): I’m replacing some kitchen cabinets and ran out of screws at around 6:00 p.m. It is Football Saturday, somehow 70 degrees, and also laundry day so my choices for Michigan apparel were the sole remaining STUDENT season ticket bundle t-shirt (which has long been relegated to “workout gear”), and my Apollo 15 all University of Michigan “Space Bitches. Space” t-shirt. I chose the latter. Having forgotten my selection, I threw on a light jacket (probably covering all but the middle word) and rushed out to the small local hardware store before it closed. I see an older gentleman employee as I enter the store. I consider myself a polite person, especially in small local hardware store situations, so we exchange the normal pleasantries. Then I catch him glance at my torso, and stumble on the end of his welcoming greeting. He seems a bit offended. Now aware of my chosen wardrobe, I zip up my jacket, gather my necessary items, and proceed to the register. As I’m checking out, I can’t help but internally laugh as the employee rings up my items, confused at the impeccable manners from a “Kid”***** wearing a “bitches” t-shirt.
*****Shut up! I’m not old! YOU’RE old!
******For Juwan, nobody was arguing that what he did was ok or justified… There was debate on the appropriate punishment and questions as to why the Wisconsin assistant who attacked a player was not suspended. Personally, I think U-M would have been justified in firing Juwan… I’m also OK with giving him a second chance (after suspension) with absolutely NO leash for repeat behavior. As for Donovan: For those of you who don’t know, he retweeted an anti-sematic remark originally posted by Kanye West. I don’t know Donovan. I don’t know if he follows Kanye and accidentally fat-fingered a retweet button, if he was drunk/stupid and chose to retweet the comment without thinking about it, or if he’s actually a racist. As far as I know, there is no “pattern of behavior” here. If the coaches that know him really think he is a good kid who did something dumb, then I think the mandatory trip to the holocaust museum is an excellent response.
*******Steal from… allegedly