Tulsa head coach releases statement following brawl with Mississippi State
Tulsa head coach Phillip Montgomery has released a statement on the brawl that took place with Mississippi State on Thursday.
Montgomery tweeted out this message:
“There is no place in football or our program for the actions that occurred after Thursday’s bowl game. It’s not who we are. It’s not part of our culture. It will not be tolerated. I’m sick about this ending to what was an otherwise incredible season for a talented team.”
It’s currently unclear what started the altercation between the Golden Hurricane and the Bulldogs, although Mississippi State’s Malik Heath has been receiving a lot of the ire in the fallout.
Bulldogs athletic director John Cohen released a statement on Friday about the event:
“While I’m proud of the representation of our football student-athletes in our previous 10 SEC games and applaud the effort of our team during the Armed Forces Bowl, I’m deeply concerned about the actions of some student-athletes. No matter what led to the situation, fighting is inexcusable and does not represent Mississippi State University’s core values. Our administration and Coach Leach are working diligently with the SEC office to review yesterday’s events and will address the situation in an appropriate matter.”
Many prominent voices in college football have sounded off on the brawl, including Kirk Herbstreit. He called it a “black eye” for college football and was specifically critical of Mississippi State coach Mike Leach.
Neither school has announced punishments for the players involved.
Mississippi State did win the game 28-26. The Bulldogs moved to 4-7 to finish Leach’s first season with the victory.
For a small private school with limited funds, that was a good show they put on until the fight.
Everyone seems to be kind of overreacting, right?
No
Yes. Crazy overreaction.
No! Mississippi state program is trash! They did the same thing in a bowl game with Iowa.
Mississippi State University is an awesome place.
People will forget about it in a couple days, and get mad about something else.
True, another ‘hot,’ more recent topic will take everyone’s attn, but you’re foolish to think people will simply forget.
there was the halftime incident just a couple of months ago in gainesville involving uf and mizz. there was the nasty brawl between um and fiu ~10 yrs ago. there was also the myles garrett incident with mason rudolph a couple of years ago that’s getting new attn again for this wknd’s game btwn the two teams.
i don’t recall the referenced brawl btwn iowa and miss st, but it’s up to leach and miss st to be sure this latest incident doesn’t define them.
I can think of about 4 or 5 on field fights with Mississippi State. All but two are against Ole Miss. The Iowa State thing was just bowing up to each other. I know Ole Miss was just as responsible for those on field fights as State. In my opinion, the Willie Gay and Garrett Schrader thing last year was worse. I believe Malik Heath was wrong for kicking the guy who fell and should face discipline. He was also one of the key instigators in the whole thing. But my point is people who watched the tape live, and rewatched it, tweeted about it, are all making immediate judgments that “must be handled or else…”. And my point is “or else what?” The trend of people saying this can’t be tolerated, etc, or else and then nothing permanent happens. Discipline runs it’s course the player makes good life changing decisions or doesn’t. I care much more what changes over the next 6-9 months than 2 days later. Miles Garrett is still in the NFL and was nominated for his good works this year. Jeffrey Simmons still plays for the Tennessee Titans and used that moment to speak to kids to help others. I’m a let’s see what happens. This is where Moorhead failed, and I hope Leach does what’s necessary.
i see your intended point now. it’s certainly a valid one….and one i wish i had an easy answer for.
No, Leach is trash if he doesn’t discipline them.
nope? and it happened WAY to much this year. Huge turn off for all football fans, except of course the ones that changed channels back to WWF after the football game.
No, as an MSU grad and season ticket holder, that type of garbage after a game is embarrassing. And as far as kicking somebody that is on the ground then running away like a scared punk…he would never play another down for me.
I don’t know if Miss St is trash, but Leach is missing circuits in his head. His “boys will be boys” act is a load of dog crap. Pretty interesting that he had nothing to say to the press today. AD doing all the talking.
I think Herbstreit is an arrogant talking head, but he was right to call out Leach.
“There’s always a lot of criticism out there when somebody does something wrong, everybody wants to know how you’re going to punish the guy,” Saban said, speaking on former Crimson Tide player DJ Pettway. “But there’s not enough (support) for 19 and 20-year old kids, people out there saying why don’t you give them another chance,” Saban said. “Where do you want them to be? You want them to be in the street or do you want them to be here, graduating?”
Thanks Wandering Jersey, you note the most rational response to the unfortunate event. As an AL fan, I am of course biased. But no suprise that a quote from Nick Saban provides the balanced view. Nick Saban thinks about what is best for the 18 to 23 year-old players’ lives in the long-term.
That Ole Miss fan is just throwing insults simply because they’re an Ole Miss fan. Mississippi State’s program isn’t “trash” and imo it isn’t realy worth paying attention to.
As far as Herbstreit is concerned, him calling out Leach is justified but as I’ve said on a different article, I don’t understand his and most other reasoning as to why majority of the blame seem to be targeting MSU when Tulsa is just as guilty. I’m not even just saying this because I’m a MSU fan because other fans have agreed. Sure, the fight was stupid and the heat our team is getting because of it is justified but Tulsa isn’t innocent either.
Neither I nor anyone here really know all of the factors leading up to this incident, but It is a factThat miss state has a long history of fighting and its fans always wants to blame the other team. It’s as much of a tradition as cowbells
Y’all are REALLY missing the point here. And because of the PC issue, NOBDY can speak it.
NOTHING BUT A SHARK FEEDING FRENZY after it started. It will never EVER change. Those animal even turned on the coaches AND the police.
Sugar coat it anyway you want but Zulu Dawn is Zulu Dawn……..
It’s been 5 days since anyone has commented on this or brought it up, and I bet I only hear about it maybe 1 or 2 more times before the next season. People were mad and embarrassed, but no real concerns. It was a fight on a football field. That’s it.
But, I will watch to see what happens in the suspensions and discipline.