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College GameDay hosts react to nasty Mississippi State-Tulsa brawl: ‘There needs to be consequences’
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Bowl season was marred slightly on Thursday when an ugly brawl broke out at the end of the Mississippi State-Tulsa game.
The scuffle started in pre-game but exploded after the final whistle.
On College GameDay Friday morning, Kirk Herbstreit offered a solution to help prevent future incidents like this.
“The only way anything is going to change from this,” Herbstreit said. “We see this more and more in the sport, coming out without a shirt on. That needs to be banned in the sport. Coming out with your shirt off, that’s sending a message to your opponent. I remember Penn State-Ohio State a year ago. It adds to the chippy-ness of the game.
“The officials need to be able to control that. When you see something like this — where police are coming in, people need to be arrested. There needs to be consequences.”
Desmond Howard agreed with Herbstreit’s idea of not allowing players to be shirtless in the pre-game, but also put some blame on Mississippi State coach Mike Leach.
“When I saw the fight, I thought ‘how did you not see this coming?’ Because we just showed the film before the game,” Howard said. “It was skins vs. blouses. Guys are in each other’s faces. It was chippy. And then throughout the game, guys were in each other’s faces, talking, taunting. So this was brewing. You knew it was coming. I don’t know, where was Mike Leach? Where was his coaching staff at the end of the game? You can see this coming — make sure you go out there and conduct yourselves like professionals and make sure you’re in position that this won’t happen.”
David Pollack took the opportunity to sound off on Mississippi State’s Malik Heath after he was caught kicking a Tulsa player in the helmet.
“Here’s where I struggle with this — I say in my head they’re 18-22 year-old kids. They’re not kids anymore,” Pollack said. “And the fact that you jump up and cleat somebody, you should be kicked out of the sport. Like, go away. That’s the dumbest thing , one of the dumbest things I’ve seen on a football field.”
Punishments for players involved have not been announced yet, but that could be coming soon.
Spenser is the news manager at Saturday Road and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.