Remember When A Michigan State Beat Writer Accused the Oregon Ducks of Pumping Artificial Noise Into Autzen Stadium?
By Dom Pruett
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It’s the eve of the biggest game of the 2015 college football season. At 5:00 pm tomorrow all the analysis and speculation will no longer matter, as the long-awaited showdown will be underway.
However, there is still plenty of time left for excessive analysis and other things: like bringing up useless articles from a year ago, which is what I’m going to do.
Following Oregon’s 19-point drubbing over Michigan State on September 6th, 2014, Mike Griffith, an MSU Beat Writer for Mlive.com made an outlandish proclamation.
Griffith attributed Oregon’s deafening crowd noise to artificial causes. Here’s the quote below, courtesy of Tyson Alger of the Oregonian:
"The combination of the Ducks using a myriad of formations and running the hurry up offense paired with one of the loudest artificial noise-making speakers in college football is hell on defenses,” Griffith wrote. “Oregon fans got loud on a half-dozen occasions, too, but it was the giant speaker in the east end zone piping in bass music that prevented pre-snap communication by the Spartans’ defense."
Oregon denied any wrongdoing, and nothing came of Griffith’s claims. One could easily write off these accusations as being nothing more than sour grapes from a Michigan Sate fan. Whether Oregon pumped artificial noise into Autzen Stadium will probably forever remain unknown. But here’s something that is 100% true: Michigan State blew a 9-point lead midway through the third quarter and didn’t score a point the rest of the game.
If the NCAA wants to conduct their version of the “Deflategate” investigation, I’m certain Mike Griffith is the right man for the job.