After Michigan football and Penn State got into a bit of a jaw session in the Lloyd Carr tunnel at halftime of Saturday’s game, PSU head coach James Franklin is placing the blame on the policy of having both teams go up the tunnel almost simultaneously, instead of anything his team may have done.
According to Michigan players after the game, it was the Nittany Lions who started the spat, and the only other team that’s ever managed to get into any in-tunnel antics has been Ohio State.
Despite most teams not having a problem, and it not being Franklin’s home turf, he’s insisting the Big Ten step in and change things at Michigan Stadium due to what happened.
“Again, I prefer to talk about these things in the off-season, but the one tunnel is a problem,” Franklin said. “It’s a problem and has been. To me, we need to put a policy in place from a conference perspective in my mind that’s going to stop — we’re not the first team to kind of get into a jawing match in the tunnel. For me, I want to focus on getting my team into the locker room and not jawing back and forth.
“Get my team get in the locker room and their team get in the locker room. There really should be a policy that first team that goes in, there is a buffer. If not, this team starts talking to this team, they start jawing back and forth, and something bad is gonna happen before we put in the policy.
“All there has to be a two-minute or minute buffer in between the two teams. This team is in before that team gets close and however we want to do it. But we’re not the first team that’s had issues like that. To me, under the current structure we won’t be the last. To me, there is a really easy solution. We got to do it.
“But for me, I want to get our team in the locker room. That’s my concern.”
Usually I don’t go first person on these pages, but I was there and witnessed what happened. I don’t know who started the in-tunnel banter, but Penn State was holding Michigan up, as the Michigan locker room is past where the visitor locker room’s entrance is. There are reports that Penn State players were throwing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Michigan players, further corroborated by Michigan left guard Trevor Keegan on Tuesday.
“I didn’t get a sandwich thrown at me, but R.J. (Moten) came up to me and said, ‘I just got a P.B.J. in the face,'” Keegan said. “So I guess they were. I didn’t see that but that’s what he told me.”
Regardless, while Franklin is honorably defending his team, he needs to take a look in the mirror and recognize that his side of the aisle is culpable here, even if Michigan is also culpable. Also, to insist that a conference step in and do something to another team when it really was much ado about nothing at the end of the day is absurd. No one physically got hurt, and if Penn State had rallied to win the game, assuredly that would have been pointed to as an impetus for the second-half surge. But his team lost, so this comes across as sour grapes.
Worry about your own team and your own stadium, James. Besides your loss, everything is OK.
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