Michigan State fans often like to talk about ‘the Blue Wall,’ a conspiracy theory they’ve concocted that furthers their own sense of victimhood. ‘The Blue Wall’ is their assertion that everyone is out to protect Michigan football at the expense of MSU.
So, after years of being painted as the bad guy following the assault in the Michigan Stadium tunnel following the 2022 game, the Spartans were all too happy to paint a typical postgame skirmish between two rivals as some kind of dastardly situation concocted by Michigan where the Wolverines were the worst actors.
The MSU media took the matter into its own hands and flat-out named Kalel Mullings as a bad actor who was ‘stomping’ on a Spartan player or staffer. However, upon reviewing the video, the Big Ten did not implicate Mullings or any other Wolverine. And Sherrone Moore told 97.1 The Ticket earlier this week that Michigan’s own internal review indicates Mullings was not only maliciously trying to hurt Spartan players or staffers, but he was actively trying to break up the scuffle.
“We’ve looked at the film, looked at everything, had our discussions internally,” Moore said. “We saw a lot of our guys being positive. I think there’s things out there about Kalel Mullings, he was one of the guys who was trying to be a superhero.
“He was trying to pull everybody apart. I think our guys were doing the right thing.”
It’s difficult to tell what really is the truth, even with cameras there capturing everything in 4K. Even so, against any other team and against any other media apparatus, this incident would be like any other in-game scuffle that you see across the college football season. But now, Mullings’ reputation has been tarnished, even without any substantial evidence that he was doing what MSU fans and media accused him of.
It may be the nature of this rivalry, but it needs to stop.