Sports

Texas State Football Coach Rejects Blame After His Players Threw Haymakers In Violent Postgame Brawl

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Texas State Louisiana Football Brawl Fight
@CajunSportsTalk / X

A nasty brawl broke out between Texas State and Louisiana after the college football game in Lafayette on Saturday. It started during the last few plays of the game and continued into the tunnel.

However, Bobcats head coach GJ Kinne feels like it is a recurring trend with his program.

Not that his college football team actively seeks a fight. Rather, that its opponents always play with an extra chip on their shoulders and often cross the line.

Texas State has never defeated Louisiana.

These two programs have played 13 times in total, dating back to 2013. The Ragin’ Cajuns won all 13.

That includes Saturday. Louisiana-Lafayette (or whatever they want to be called these days) held off a fourth-quarter surge by Texas State to win by three points with a final score of 42-39.

And then it got ugly.

According to boots on the ground, Bobcats players were pushing and shoving during the last few plays of the game. They started throwing hands as the Ragin’ Cajuns went into victory formation.

The scuffle escalated to an all-out brawl during the handshake line shortly thereafter.

Coaches tried their best to separate the two teams but there was too much going on all over the field.

Punches were flying. We’re talking full-blown haymakers.

It took a long time to get the two sides separated. Texas State defensive lineman Kyran Bourda had to be physically restrained by multiple staffers and teammates.

Louisiana head coach Michael Desormeaux said after the game that the fight continued into the tunnel. The visitors started it and would not let it go.

The two college football coaches had very different takes on the brawl.

Desormeaux did not hold back on the Bobcats. He made it very clear who was at fault.

“It pisses me off the way the game ended,” the fourth-year head coach said. “It was classless on their part […] that’s a really crappy way for a football game to end.”

Texas State released the following statement:

GJ Kinne offered a different perspective. The head coach made it sound like other teams are to blame for the scuffles at the end of games, which has been a consistent theme this season.

“It was hard to tell (what happened), to be honest with you,” he said. “I was just trying to bring people up, but pretty scary, pretty dangerous there at the end. This continues to happen to us. Every time we play a game, the other team comes after us, so it’s a part of it. I was proud of the guys for the way that we got away and got out of there.”

The lack of awareness here is pretty astonishing. Maybe Kinne really did not know what happened, in which case he should’ve left it at that. The Bobcats started the fight during victory formation. They continued it after the game. They kept it going into the tunnel.

But it’s the other team that went after them? Not great. There seems to be a common denominator.