Here’s what reportedly happened between Penn State and Michigan at halftime
Penn State football suffered its first defeat of the season on Saturday at the hands of Michigan.
During halftime of Penn State football’s 41-17 loss to Michigan on Saturday, tempers flared in the tunnel outside the locker rooms.
Fox showed footage of the incident before the second half started, but when asked about the details before the second half kick, Penn State head coach James Franklin refused to comment on the matter.
Considering he was in the middle of a huge matchup and in a close game at 16-14, Franklin made the right move to not focus on the extra-curricular activities.
The vagueness of the dust up was cleared up a bit on Tuesday though.
First off, Brandon Justice of Michigan Rivals reported that Wolverines safety R.J. Moten was hit in the face with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich during the shouting match. If you look closely at the beginning of this video, you will see an object fly out of the Penn State locker room and head towards the group of Michigan players.
For everyone’s sake, it’s fortunate that this was just a couple slices of bread and not something that could have caused any serious injury.
A few hours before this report came out, Franklin met with the media and had this to say on the incident.
"We need to put a policy in place to stop this."
Franklin is referencing the fact that Michigan Stadium has only one tunnel and the locker rooms are across the hall from each other. In most stadiums, especially newer ones, the two teams don’t even come across each other as the locker rooms are usually on opposite sides of the stadium.
Michigan has had dust ups in the tunnel before, most notably last November against Ohio State. Oddly enough, that game had a similar ending to this one.
Franklin may have a point, but trash talk is part of the game and heated confrontations will always occur, it’s just the nature of the sport. It’s more important for him to make sure his players stay calm and do not escalate the situation to the point of objects being thrown.
Obviously, this is only Michigan’s side of the story and it’s unclear if something was thrown before the video started rolling or if something was said that really hit home with the individual (currently unidentified) who threw the sandwich.
Both teams will likely put the run-in in the rearview mirror and focus on their next matchups, which is the right thing to do. We may never know the full story of what happened, and that may be for the better.
