East Lansing, Mich. - Michigan State’s head football coach and athletic director accepted the findings, and fine, from the Big Ten Conference on Monday, but Spartan basketball coach Tom Izzo didn’t take it that easy.
Izzo sounded off after practice on Monday, not so much about the $100,000 fine levied against Michigan State for its players’ involvement in the tunnel incident following the Michigan football game on Oct. 29, but because he feels the action taken against Michigan was too light.
“I’m completely upset about it,” Izzo said. “I think to get a $100,000 fine and suspension of a player is fine, but to get a fine like that and the other school gets a reprimand? What the hell does reprimand mean?
“Yeah, it sticks in my craw because I’m a Mel Tucker fan, I’m a Mark Dantonio fan, I’m a Michigan State fan and I’m not standing back on that. I don’t care if it’s the commissioner, I do not think that was right. My apology to my president and my A.D., if that upsets. This is totally Tom Izzo but Tom Izzo has been through a lot more than my A.D. and my president, too. I should just let it go. I don’t feel like letting it go.”
The Big Ten Conference on Monday admonished both Michigan State and Michigan for their respective roles in the incident at Michigan Stadium. Eight Michigan State football players were suspended due to the incident, and criminal charges have been handed down against seven of those individuals, stemming from a fight that took place in the tunnel after the game.
"The conference has concluded that the University of Michigan did not meet the standards of the Big Ten Conference Football Game Management Manual policy,” the Big Ten office said in its press release on Monday. “The policy requires the conference member institution game host to provide adequate protection for personnel of both home and visiting teams when entering and leaving playing arenas. Members of both teams did not represent the level of sportsmanship that is expected from the Big Ten Conference and its member institutions."
Izzo felt the Big Ten did not go far enough.
“I was completely upset by what our players did, as Mel was,” Izzo said. “I would think that administratively they should be upset on how the tunnel was handled and how those (Michigan) players ran in there. As I’ve said before, what starts bad ends bad. So if they were reprimanded, they must have found something wrong.
“If it was managed right, there would have been no second part. It disgusts me, what happened. But it really disgusts me, too, that it wasn’t handled better on the front end since they had a problem with Ohio State a year ago, Penn State this year and then we get a $100,000 fine and there’s a reprimand? What does a reprimand mean and stand for?
“Grown-ups had a chance to make sure that thing was secure. Grown-ups. Kids are going to act differently. Maybe my own administration will be mad at me for saying this, but I’m not happy with it. But it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve been here a lot of years, been through a lot of things. Watched it happen to (Mark) Dantonio when they went after our Spartan head.”
That’s a reference to the 2018 pre-game incident in which Michigan football player Devin Bush kicked and scraped the grass at mid-field at Spartan Stadium after several Michigan players became entangled in Michigan State’s traditional pre-game walking of the field with interlocked arms. Bush and several Michigan players stood in their way rather than moving and letting the pre-game walk take place.
The Big Ten office fined Michigan State $10,000 after that incident. Dantonio received a reprimand from the Big Ten office for “for failing to take action to mitigate a foreseeable conflict from occurring.”
The Detroit Free Press reported on Monday that Michigan State received that punishment in 2018 incorrectly, with former commissioner Jim Delaney failing to follow the proper protocols in issuing that fine.
Michigan State administrators expecting Michigan to be fined for failing to mitigate a foreseeable conflict on Oct. 29 were disappointed to find that current Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren chose not to follow Delaney’s lead and jump protocols in order to issue a fine.
“It’s a sore spot because I love this place and everything should be treated equal,” Izzo said. “And I think that when adults have a chance to handle a problem that’s been a problem before and doesn’t get handled, what starts bad ends bad.
“What part of that would have happened if it had been handled right on the front end after two (issues) in the last (12) months?
“I don’t know if anybody should have been fined. I think it should be a lot more equal, like I thought the other one at Spartan Stadium (in 2018) should have been.”
