Ohio State, Michigan State trade accusations

10/2/2012

COLUMBUS — Pour another bottle of kerosene on the growing rivalry between Ohio State and Michigan State.

OSU coach Urban Meyer on Monday denied accusations his staff doctored the scouting videos they sent to the Spartans in advance of Saturday’s game, then registered a claim of his own.

Meyer said Ohio State sent the Big Ten office a tape of an alleged eye-gouging incident from the Buckeyes’ 17-16 win. Replays show Michigan State offensive lineman Jack Allen jabbing his fingers into the face of OSU defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins at the bottom of a scrum.

A Big Ten spokesman did not reply to a request for comment.

“I dealt with that at Florida one time,” said Meyer, who mentioned the play only in response to a question. “We had to sit a player down for doing that in the SEC.”

Meyer, meanwhile, said he was unaware of any video issues until after the game when Michigan State defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi said Ohio State had edited the video it was required to share with the Spartans. It is an unwritten rule — and in the Big Ten’s case, a written one — that teams exchange tape of their past games with upcoming opponents.

“We had tape cut off all week, where they changed the tape, I’m not gonna lie to you,” Narduzzi told the Detroit Free Press. “They send you tape and they've got it all cut off and you don't get to see shifts or motions or anything else.

“A few other teams we talked to that [Ohio State] played, we compared what they were looking at on tape to what we were looking at. We're like ‘We don't see any of that. We see it on their tape but not on our tape.'”

Meyer said he spoke with one of his video staffers on Sunday and learned there had been an issue last Tuesday.

“It was corrected immediately, and that's all I was told,” Meyer said. “There was no intent or deception or hiding anything, nothing like that.”

The incident marked the latest burst of tension between the two schools, dating to Meyer’s first weeks on the job when one of the Spartans’ top recruits — four-star defensive end Se’Von Pittman — changed his commitment to OSU. The Buckeyes will not play MSU again until 2015 because of the league’s rotating schedule.