MSU’s Alan Haller urges the Big Ten to reconsider the Michigan fight

East Lansing — After a mostly clean 60 minutes of play, the final snap of Saturday night’s Michigan State football game turned sour when the players had a fight on the field. And Spartans athletic director Alan Haller isn’t happy about the scene.

First reported by the Lansing State Journal and confirmed by The Detroit News, Haller called Big Ten officials shortly after the game, shared his frustration with the entire situation and urged the conference to look into the situation for disciplinary action.

“I called the commissioner right after the game,” Haller said Monday. “I thought the sportsmanship policy should be kept in mind, and I asked that the Big Ten look into it.”

Haller was not given a deadline to review the Big Ten. The News reached out to the Big Ten for comment, but did not receive a response. A message left for Michigan State athletic director Varde Manuel was also not immediately returned.

Saturday’s brawl was the latest installment in what has turned into a brutal recent history of the rivalry. After a loss to the Wolverines in 2022, a group of Spartans players. were involved in a brawl in the Michigan Stadium tunnelattacking two Michigan players. Seven players saw the charges brought against them Eight were suspended from Michigan State athletics by the Washtenaw County District Attorney’s Office, and the school itself received a $100,000 fine from the Big Ten — the largest fine in conference history.

But Haller does not believe that criminal responsibility should be brought for Saturday’s incident. All he wants is for the conference to implement its own disciplinary rules.

“I don’t think this situation should have been a criminal incident, and I don’t think it should have been,” Haller said. “This is a sportsmanship policy situation and the conference will address it. And I want everyone to be held to the same standards. But I don’t think that this incident or this incident is a criminal situation.”

Saturday night’s fight began after a shove between Michigan State tight end Colston Loveland and Michigan State defensive end Anthony Jones. Loveland headbutted Jones as they squared off after a 24-17 win for the Wolverines.

Then players from both teams, but mostly from Michigan because the stage was closer to her sideline, crowded the stage, which turned into a bigger brawl. Players and staff were pushed down.

“We had a lot of personnel and our outside line to break it down, defend it, get out there,” Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith said. “Like I said, I didn’t look carefully at all the angles and stuff. I know this will be addressed at the conference. We talked with them.”

An overhead view from the Big Ten Network broadcast showed running back Kalel Mullings stomping someone who Smith confirmed was a Michigan State employee.

“Yes, we had a staff member who was in a scrimmage and a player in a scrimmage,” Smith said Monday. “And so we hope they (the Big Ten) are looking at it.”

Minutes after the scrimmage, Loveland told Brooke Fletcher of the Big Ten Network, “Little brother is left doing little brother things. So MSU, little brother, they can do whatever they want. We knew it would be unpleasant, but everything within the game we do right. And then, if they want to be busy, we’ll be busy.”

His head coach, former Michigan State boss Sherron Moore, suggested a more controlled approach.

“I told the team that this is not acceptable, no matter what happened or how it started,” Moore said after the game. “Guys are chirping at us, and we are responding. The guy headbutted Colston at the end. Our job is to represent this university. Do not react to it. Let the judges handle that. This is something we will handle and take care of. This is not Michigan football. We are not like that.”

On Monday, which had a day to process the events, Moore said he had not heard from the Big Ten regarding the fight and repeatedly said his team would handle internal discipline.

“This is not how we represent the University of Michigan, the Block M or the winged helmet,” Moore said at a news conference Monday. “So we’ll make sure it never happens again.”

As of press time, no disciplinary action has been announced against Michigan or Michigan State, either domestically or at the conference itself.

Staff writer Angelique S. Chengelis contributed.