Michigan State lodges complaint against Ohio State, Urban Meyer over edited game tapes

Funny what giving 383 yards defensively does to a defensive coordinator and a football program.

Fresh on the heels of a hard fought defeat at the hands of Urban Meyer and the Ohio State Buckeyes, Michigan State's defensive coordinator came with knives out for the OSU staff to the Detroit Free Press:

MSU defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi confirmed to the Free Press that MSU contacted the Big Ten and said Ohio State cut off pre-snap motions and shifts before plays on film of its four games before today's 17-16 OSU win at Spartan Stadium.

"We had tape cut off all week, where they changed the tape, I'm not gonna lie to you," Narduzzi said outside the MSU locker room. "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."

Big Ten teams are required to provide game film to each other before they play, with footage shot by their respective video staffs. Narduzzi said MSU contacted Ohio State's non-league opponents and got film from them.

Interesting how this wasn't an issue all week given that State supposedly didn't receive tape from the alternate sources until Thursday.

While this would obviously raise some serious questions about Ohio State's video staff (and assuming Meyer had anything to do with it, the program as well)'s ethical standards as a whole, unless an extremely unexpected smoking gun comes to light, immediately in the aftermath of a tough loss, it's difficult to interpret this as anything other than sour grapes.

When asked of the allegations, Meyer stated he had no knowledge of the situation and deferred to a team staff member who also denied any knowledge of the accusations. It's not clear whether Ohio State's first four opponents had a tape exchange with the Buckeyes and if they did, it'd be interesting to learn what the content of those tapes contained.

Of course that won't stop the Matt Hayes, Mike Bianchi, Tim Brando intellectual shortcut mafia from making this their mock outrage story du jour. Does Urban Meyer's lawless Machiavellian ways know no bounds?

UPDATE:

From the Detroit Free Press yet again:

Narduzzi indicated that MSU complained to the Big Ten, but MSU associate athletic director John Lewandowski said MSU athletic director Mark Hollis and Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith settled the issue between them, with no Big Ten involvement.

Lewandowski added that Ohio State sent proper game film after the ADs discussed the issue Thursday.