ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Last week, days after the incident involving Penn State and Michigan in the Lloyd Carr Tunnel at Michigan Stadium, Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin insisted that changes needed to be made to the tunnel at The Big House. And if Michigan wasn’t going to do anything about it, the Big Ten needed to step in.
“Again, I prefer to talk about these things in the offseason, 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.”
Some halftime tunnel shenanigans happening. pic.twitter.com/FwxgXdO7jj
— Isaiah Hole (@isaiahhole) October 15, 2022
Jim Harbaugh wasn’t having any of that.
A full week-plus has passed since Michigan football was on bye this past week. But in his first press conference since the incident, the Wolverines’ head coach not only blasted Franklin’s comment, he put the PSU head coach right in the middle of the crosshairs. Destroying Franklin’s narrative that he just wanted to get his team into the locker room, Harbaugh noted it was Penn State that held Michigan up from getting to theirs.
And Harbaugh placed the blame squarely on the Penn State coach for the situation.
“Really got bigger fish to fry than Ccach Franklin’s opinion on the halftime tunnel from a game ago,” Harbaugh said. “But all they gotta do is walk into their locker room. I think you saw pretty clearly that they completely stopped. They weren’t letting us get up the tunnel. And it just seemed like such a sophomoric ploy to try to keep us out of our locker room. And, he looked like he was the ringleader of the whole thing. But, no, I’ve got bigger fish to fry than to worry about that kind of whining.”
Certainly, there will be no love lost between the two head coaches. But, to the victor goes the spoils. And considering Michigan beat Penn State, 41-17, the Wolverines can really say whatever they want.
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