Tom Izzo shares public comments on Michigan Stadium tunnel incident from UM-MSU game

Tom Izzo is well acquainted with the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry as a piece of the Spartan coaching staff since 1983. Since becoming the head coach in East Lansing in 1995, Izzo has been a strong proponent and supporter of the Spartan football program.

On Monday night, Izzo and MSU basketball opened the 2022-23 season with a win over Northern Arizona. After the game, Izzo took time to address the ugly scene following this year’s rivalry contest.

He went on to praise Mel Tucker’s handling of the incident and quick action in reprimanding the players:

“I think Mel did what he was supposed to do,” said Izzo. “He reprimanded the guys that didn’t do their job right. There’s other people who should be reprimanded for not doing their job right.”

He went on to further explain his remarks and admitted he’s fed up with “Michigan State always looking like the bad guy.”

“The decisions (Tucker) made on the players was awesome. There’s not an excuse in the world why players should act like that, but I have some problems with some other things… That’s my stick-up for Mel and for our program. I get tired of Michigan State always looking like the bad guy, there’s been other bad guys.”

Here’s what Tom Izzo had to say tonight about the incident in the tunnel at UM. He was asked by a reporter about the MSU victory over Illinois. Rather than try to condense/paraphrase what he said into a tweet, I’ll let his words speak for themselves: pic.twitter.com/V9mXkP4jPG

— David Harns (@DavidHarns) November 8, 2022

While some of Izzo’s comments were left admittedly cryptic, he certainly was not shy about his respect and support of Tucker’s handling of the situation while condemning the actions of the Spartans involved.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.