Michigan State Fined, Michigan Reprimanded by Big Ten

Big Ten officials handed Michigan State a $10,000 fine and reprimanded Michigan for the pre-game incidents Saturday.

Everyone knew that emotions would be high going into the game, it is Michigan vs Michigan State after all. Things got off to a heated start during the Spartan Walk, a tradition before every MSU home game. The walk was not the problem to the Big Ten, it was the lack of communication between the schools and the incidents that followed the walk.

Big Ten officials were very specific about who was being reprimanded, and for what.

• Michigan State was fined $10,000 for violating the Big Ten sportsmanship policy, and initiating contact with Michigan players while they were legitimately on the field warming up.
• Mark Dantonio was reprimanded for not taking action to avoid the conflict, and not communicating with Michigan coaches to avoid the incident all together.
• Devin Bush was reprimanded for tearing up the Spartan logo on the field after the walk.
• Jim Harbaugh was reprimanded for his comments after the game about the incident.

I honestly love what happened before the game. I think the Big Ten did as well, but as league officials they probably felt like they had to do something.

The rivalry has gotten to be a war of meme's online lately, so it was nice to see two teams that genuinely don't like each other, have a chance to show it.

I'm not saying that I want a pre-game fight every week or anything, but this definitely helped to add some excitement to the game.

Now Michigan State fans can go back to calling Michigan fans "Walmart Wolverines" and pointing out the last 10 games. Michigan fans can keep riding the "Little Brother" train, and go break their fans hearts by losing to Penn State or Ohio State.