Sherrone Moore addresses ‘unacceptable’ fight between Michigan, Michigan State players

During his postgame press conference after a 24-17 rivalry win over Michigan State, Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore admonished his team for letting emotions escalate into a postgame scuffle.

While the fracas was not quite risible to the tunnel brawl from two years ago or some various altercations in years preceding that, it was, in the words of the Michigan head coach, unacceptable. He made that crystal clear during his press conference.

“I told the team it was unacceptable, regardless of what happened and how it started,” Moore said. “There’s guys chirping at us and us responding and the guy head butted Colston [Loveland] at the end and our job is to represent this University, it’s not to respond to that. It’s to let the refs handle that. Something that we’ll handle internally and make sure we take care of. But, that’s not Michigan football, that’s not who we are.” 

Moore’s press conference admonishment mirrored what he said on the field to Big Ten Network immediately postgame.

“That’s not what Michigan football is all about,” Moore said on BTN postgame. “That’s not how we represent our program and this university. That’s uncalled for. That will be dealt with and handled. But that’s very disappointing that our football team was a part of that.”

And his message was a bit of a departure from that of his tight end, who was front and center for the beginning of the scrap.

“Little bro stay doing little bro things, you know? So MSU’s the little bro, they can do whatever they want. We knew it was going to get chippy. But everything within the confines of the game we do right and then after they want to get busy, we’ll get busy,” Loveland said on Big Ten Network.

After Michigan took a final knee to run down the clock, Loveland and Spartans defensive lineman Anthony Jones were jawing and exchanging some shoves. Then Loveland stepped close and Jones grabbed him by both sides of his helmet, apparently trying to throw him to the ground.

From there, the brief scuffle at midfield ensued.