Year of 2020 didn’t end without a fight

There was one parting shot for 2020 courtesy of the Mississippi State and Tulsa football teams on Thursday.

The Armed Forces Bowl postgame brawl between the Bulldogs and Golden Hurricane was an ugly way to end the year. There were definitely some armed forces at work, but not in a good way.

Now, I’m not going to go all “Kirk Herbstreit” on everyone here and take it to the extreme that he did Friday. He said it was the worse thing to ever happen in college football.

That take was a little over the top. There are some other things that have happened in the college football world that can be considered much worse than a few punches thrown after a game.

Yes, there was a fight, it was bad and it must be dealt with by the respective schools and move on.

It was just a shame that the drama had to be played out all over social media and national television.

As 2020 came to a close, ESPN and the SEC Network showed the fight over and over on its late highlight shows. CBS This Morning and other news networks gave it some air time to start its programs on Friday morning. It was not nice to have to wake up to that. I was actually hoping it was just a bad dream.

Instead of MSU feeling good about a much-needed bowl win, something it had not enjoyed since 2017, the Bulldogs had to address questions and explain what happened with the encounter after the game.

The situation will surely be addressed by State in some way and there will certainly be some consequences coming from it.

MSU Athletic Director John Cohen issued a statement on Friday afternoon and pretty much said steps have already been taken to evaluate the events of Thursday.

“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,” Cohen said. “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.”

When Cohen and other officials look at the tape, hopefully the entire game will be considered. There is plenty of blame to go around and it certainly looked like the Golden Hurricane came to the bowl looking for a fight.

The comments by Tulsa head coach Greg Montgomery

didn’t help matters.

“The one thing I’ll say is our program, our guys, we’re a team that are going to stand up for each other and we’re going to battle,” Montgomery said. “We talk about faith, family, football and family’s going to take care of family. We’re a team that has battled all year long. We battled again today. From that standpoint, our guys are going to continue to protect each other and go from there.”

Montgomery acted as if none of his players did anything wrong. They did and it’s not hard to find. The Golden Hurricane were not always angels.

The Tulsa players appeared to be having words with some of the Bulldogs during pregame warmup and there was some dirty play throughout the game. MSU’S players handled themselves fine for the most part between the lines, but emotions boiled over at the end.

Cooler heads should have prevailed. In the heat of the moment, that’s easier said than done. Football is a physical game and that raises the blood pressure at times.

It’s human nature to defend yourself and it’s tough to just walk away, but the Bulldogs should have tried to do that. A little self control would have prevented the nasty scene that was witnessed and nationally-documented after the Armed Forces Bowl.