The back and forth between Michigan and Michigan State is still going strong.

Monday afternoon, Ben Phlegar, the associate director of athletic communications at Michigan State, issued a statement regarding the pre-game skirmish that occurred between players from the two teams. In the statement, Michigan State says the football team followed the timeline it provided to Michigan’s football staff and that UM players and staffers refused to leave the field.

During his weekly press conference, Jim Harbaugh said the march was planned to disrupt Michigan’s warmups. He referred to it as a “Storm Trooper march.”

From Michigan State:

Regarding last Saturday’s pregame timeline, both teams were distributed pregame timing sheets and were in communication earlier in the week about Michigan State’s pregame tradition of walking the field upon arrival to Spartan Stadium. There has never been an on-field issue with this tradition in the 12 years under head coach Mark Dantonio. The timing of Saturday’s pregame tradition did not change from previous games, nor did the communication change between both schools. MSU was scheduled to leave the Kellogg Center for its walk to the stadium at 9:45 a.m. and left at 9:47 a.m. The team was scheduled to arrive at Spartan Stadium at approximately 10 a.m. and walked the field at approximately 10:02 a.m. As a courtesy, Michigan was granted field access before MSU’s arrival with the understanding from both sides that the U of M student-athletes would leave the field during this tradition. Michigan was on the field prior to 10 a.m. as previously agreed upon, but when multiple MSU staff members asked both U of M student-athletes and staff members to please move off the field for the pregame field walk, this did not occur.

There has been speculation from the Michigan side that Michigan State arrived to be 10 minutes late to its traditional walk in order to disrupt UM’s warmups. The Spartans are refuting that claim.

So now we’ll sit and wait to see what the response is from Michigan. Because you know one is most certainly coming soon.