Armed Forces Bowl ends in brawl between Mississippi State and Tulsa

The Armed Forces Bowl Saw Mississippi State defeat Tulsa 28-26, but it ended in an ugly postgame brawl that involved police on the field and even a player kicked by a Mississippi State player wearing cleats.

The last postseason game that ended with this kind of issue was between Memphis and BYU in the 2014 Miami Beach Bowl. This is a very bad look for both teams, and ESPN broadcasters both mentioning that law enforcement could get involved. And since all of this happened after the final whistle, that’s certainly possible.

After the game, Mississippi State head coach didn’t seem too concerned about the brawl or any potential implications afterwards:

Here are some of Leach’s comments above postgame, and it looks like he doesn’t quite grasp the gravity of what happened. But how much of what happened he actually saw we just don’t know.

“This is a football game so we’re not going to be tearing cloth over this. Somebody went to a football game and somebody got hit. Ya know there’s a point to where I’m not going to lose my mind over it.”

One of the players that was certainly involved was redshirt senior safety TieNeal Martin, wearing #7 in the video. Martin had 21 tackles and six passes defensed in 2020, after playing in just two games in 2019. Martin appeared to be kicked by #4 for Mississippi State Malik Heath, who had 34 receptions for 291 yards and three touchdowns this season.

After the game Heath was livestreaming in the locker room while Leach made his postgame comments to the team:

More to come: