A massive brawl broke out in the moments following the Armed Forces Bowl on Thursday, marring Mississippi State‘s 28-26 win against Tulsa in Fort Worth, Texas.
It is unclear what sparked the fight, which included kicking and punching and involved several members from both teams. What started with some shoving near midfield during the postgame handshake spilled toward and down one of the sidelines.
Tulsa, its conference, the AAC, and Mississippi State said they would review what happened and hand out discipline if warranted.
“There is no place in football or our program for the actions that occurred after Thursday’s bowl game,” Tulsa coach Philip Montgomery said in a statement Friday. “It is not who we are. It is 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.”
Mississippi State coach Mike Leach said Thursday he wasn’t sure what caused the fight.
“It’s dumb. The root of it’s dumb, no matter what the root of it is. The root of it’s dumb and the continuation of it’s dumb,” he said. “I would have that solidly in the category of dumb. Now where the dumb started, I’m not entirely sure.”
In a statement Friday, Mississippi State athletic director John Cohen said that 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 manner.”
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Mississippi State coach Mike Leach says he isn’t going to lose his mind over the Bulldogs’ postgame brawl and adds that his team hasn’t had any problems like this during the season.
Montgomery also could not point to what started the brawl.
“The one thing I’ll say is our program, our guys, we’re a team that is going to stand up for each other and we’re going to battle,” Montgomery said Thursday. “We talked about faith, family, football, and family is going to take care of family. We’re a team that has battled all year long. We battled again today, and from that standpoint, our guys are going to continue to protect each other and go from there.”
Tulsa interim athletic director Rick Dickson issued a statement Friday saying that the school expects “our coaches to hold our student-athletes accountable for behavior on and off the field. Regardless of cause or the outcome of any investigations, we are extremely disappointed by the actions that followed Thursday’s bowl game.”
Leach said after the game that a group of Tulsa players circled around the Mississippi State pregame warm-ups and “were talking,” but he wouldn’t speculate further about what might have caused things to escalate.
“I haven’t seen enough film or anything like that to entirely let us off the hook on this thing by any stretch,” he said.
After the pregame incident, the game was chippy. The teams combined for 18 penalties.
Tulsa safety Kendarin Ray was seen being helped off the field as things calmed down.
“I think he has probably some version of a concussion, and we’ll leave it at that,” Montgomery said.
