Harbaugh takes shot at Franklin over tunnel situation

ALTOONA, Pa. -- Penn State is getting set to play its biggest game of the season, and its quarterback was just named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week today. But none of that is the biggest story of the day concerning the Nittany Lions.

Because, well, Jim Harbaugh couldn't help himself and decided to take a shot at James Franklin.

Welcome to week two of Tunnelgate, the silly story that wound up on the front page of ESPN this afternoon after Harbaugh was asked about last week's tunnel skirmish at halftime between Michigan and Penn State.

You can watch for yourself what Harbaugh said Monday about the tunnel ordeal from nine days ago.

"I really got bigger fish to fry than Coach Franklin's opinion on the halftime tunnel from a game ago," Harbaugh said. "But all they gotta do is walk into their locker room. I think you saw pretty clearly that they completely stopped, they weren't letting us get up the tunnel. And it just seemed like such a sophomoric ploy to try to keep us out of our locker room."

Then Harbaugh took this swipe at Franklin:

"He looked like he was the ringleader of the whole thing. But no, I've got bigger fish to fry than worry about that kind of whining."

This whole ordeal, which included someone from the Penn State side throwing a PB&J sandwich at a Michigan player, really is silly. But it was inevitable that Harbaugh would be asked about it, after Franklin made these comments during his press conference last Tuesday.

"The one tunnel is a problem. It's a problem and has been," Franklin said. "To me, we need to put a policy in place from a conference perspective, in my mind, that's going to stop -- we're not the first team to kind of get into a jawing match in the tunnel. For me, I want to focus on getting my team into the locker room and not jawing back and forth. Get my team in the locker room and their team get in the locker room.

"There really should be a policy that the first team that goes in, there is a buffer. If not, this team starts talking to this team, they start jawing back and forth, and something bad is going to happen before we put in the policy. All there has to be (is) a two-minute or minute buffer in between the two teams. This team is in before that team gets close or however we want to do it. But we're not the first team that's had issues like that. To me, under the current structure, we won't be the last. To me, there is a really easy solution. We've got to do it."

You'll notice that Franklin didn't single out Harbaugh or any Michigan player, but was speaking in generalities about the tunnel setup. But Harbaugh decided to take this nonsense a step further by mentioning Franklin by name and calling him the "ringleader" and that it was "whining."

Will there be another round to this ridiculous situation? Franklin holds his weekly press conference Tuesday, so we'll see if he's asked about what Harbaugh said.

Let's hope not, so that Penn State can focus on its bigger fish to fry this week, that being the No. 2 Buckeyes.

CLIFFORD HONORED

Sean Clifford threw four TD passes and completed 23 of 31 for 295 yards in the Lions' 45-17 win over Minnesota on Saturday. He did all that after getting booed by thousands of Penn State fans during pregame lineups at Beaver Stadium.

So, the perfect, ironic ending to all of this occurred Monday when the Big Ten honored Clifford by naming him the league's Offensive Player of the Week.

It's the fourth time in his career and second time this season that Clifford has earned the award. He also received it after Penn State's season-opening win at Purdue, when he also threw four TD passes.

INDIANA KICKOFF TIME DELAYED

Penn State's game at Indiana on Nov. 5 still does not have a kickoff time. And one won't be announced until next week.