College Football

No. 4 Michigan routs Michigan State, bad blood spills over into tunnel scuffle

Updated Oct. 30, 2022 6:30 p.m. ET

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said that Michigan State players roughed up defensive back Ja’Den McBurrows in the Michigan Stadium tunnel following their game Saturday night.

After the fourth-ranked Wolverines beat the Spartans 29-7, social media posts showed at least three Michigan State players pushing, punching and kicking McBurrows in and near a hallway that does not lead to either locker room.

Harbaugh said a second player, who he did not identify, was also attacked.

"Two of our players were assaulted," Harbaugh said. "I saw on the one video. Ten-on-one. It was pretty bad."

Michigan athletic director Warde Maneul said the police and Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren are looking into the fracas.

"What happened after the game was completely unacceptable," Manuel said. "I talked to the commissioner. He’s looking into it. The police is looking into it because they’ve seen the video. This is not how we should interact after the game.

"This is not what the rivalry should be about. It should not be how it is remembered."

It is the second straight game at Michigan that included an altercation in the long, narrow tunnel that goes from the locker rooms to the field.

Earlier this month, Penn State coach James Franklin said a policy change was needed to keep the process of teams using the tunnel more orderly.

A lot of heated words were exchanged, and Michigan players said Penn State players threw peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at them as the teams headed to the locker room at halftime of a close game that the Wolverines won in a 41-17 rout on Oct. 15.

"We’re not the first team that’s had issues like that," Franklin said. "And to me, under the current structure, we won’t be the last."

Harbaugh said Franklin acted as a "ringleader" and claimed the Nittany Lions stopped in the tunnel to prevent his team from accessing its locker room.

"All they gotta do is walk into their locker room. I think you saw pretty clearly that they completely stopped," Harbaugh said earlier this week. "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."

[Jim Harbaugh dismisses James Franklin's tunnel ‘whining’]

But as it turns out, Franklin was right that it wouldn't be the last time, because it happened Saturday night.

As far as the game itself, Blake Corum ran for 177 yards and scored twice, and Jake Moody made five field goals to help the Wolverines to a 29-7 victory.

The Wolverines (8-0, 5-0 Big Ten) scored 26 straight points after falling behind briefly late in the first quarter.

The Spartans (3-5, 1-4) went 0-for-2 on fourth down in the first half. They turned it over on downs after a review of a spot and after coach Mel Tucker chose to go for it instead of kicking a short field goal to tie the game midway through the second quarter.

Michigan led 13-7 at halftime and kept control in the second half, outgaining Michigan State 133-8 in the third quarter.

Moody, the reigning Lou Groza Award winner given to the nation’s top placekicker, made a career-long 54-yarder for his fifth field goal to put the Wolverines ahead 22-7 early in the fourth.

Corum, who started the game with an FBS-high 13 touchdowns, scored for a second time on a 4-yard run after Michigan State had trouble with a snap on a punt.

With a 29-7 lead in the final minutes, coach Harbaugh showed no mercy against his in-state rival by calling for J.J. McCarthy to throw deep down the field.

McCarthy was 15-of-25 for 167 yards with a 2-yard touchdown pass to Corum.

Payton Thorne was 17-of-30 for 215 yards with a 26-yard touchdown pass to Keon Coleman that gave the Spartans a 7-3 lead late in the first quarter. Thorne also threw an interception late in the game.

Coleman finished with five catches for 155 yards and a score.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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