Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson says he's not happy with Penn State defenders following their actions at the goal line during last Saturday's game.
The QB says during his goal-line sneak in the fourth quarter, players on Penn State were poking their fingers in his eye. And you might think that in a goal line scrum such as the one Patterson was in, that it'd be easy to mistakenly poke an eye with so many bodies in the area. But Patterson says the eye pokes were intentional.
Shea Patterson on the “violent” scrum — eye gouging — on his sneak at Penn State pic.twitter.com/KZeaM9p76i
— angelique (@chengelis) October 22, 2019
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“They had me for a good 10 seconds in there. I don’t even know. I was trying to reach the ball across the plane, and for a good while, I was screaming for my life for a second. Yeah, wasn’t too happy about that," Patterson said. “I’ve never been in a pile as violent as that one. Got the touchdown, but that wasn’t fun. Dude had his index finger in my eye, in my eye socket, for about, like I said, about 10 seconds. Yeah, that wasn’t good.”
Michigan left tackle Jon Runyan Jr. also backed up Patterson's comments.
“Even on the touchdown (when) he had the QB sneak, I can’t believe it, but we were down there, we were in the pile – I wasn’t in it – but Shea was getting his eyes gouged out in the scrum over there. And he was still fighting away, even though people were digging his eyes. Came to the sidelines with tears all in his eyes, because it was ridiculous that people were trying to gouge his eyes out," he said. “I’ve heard of ankle-twisting, but I hadn’t really heard much about eye-gouging. It’s kind of ridiculous, unfair. That scrum lasted a good 30 seconds and guys weren’t coming off. Shea and Ben Mason kept trying to push their feet to get the ball across the line. It’s something I’ve never seen before. I guess it’s something they felt they needed to do to get an edge. It’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s whatever. The refs couldn’t see it because it was at the bottom of the pile.”
For reference, here's the scrum in question.
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It's too difficult to really see anything in the pile, but as the play was being reveiwed, cameras pointed to the sideline where you can see Patterson speaking with an official. He is signaling towards his eye, appearing to indicate Penn State players were poking him there.
Patterson said officials made sure he was alright after the play.
“The refs came up to me and asked if I was alright,” he said. “’Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just almost got my eye ripped out of my socket.’ I guess that’s just part of football. It was a little blurry for a second. It was a little blurry, I’m not gonna lie. But it didn’t last too long.”
While Patterson claims Penn State players were intentionally eye gouging him, it's impossible to know for sure whether that's the case. It seems very likely Patterson's eye was poked, but the intent is hard to determine. In a pile like that, players are fighting for the ball, trying to cause a game-changing fumble. It's likely a finger or hand can be put in the wrong place, like an eye socket.
