The Jimmy / Gunnell mess

So, apparently a whole bunch of people noticed the little skirmish after the game between Jimmy Clausen and Rich Gunnell. I did, too.

To catch you up if you didn’t, Jimmy went over to shake hands with Gunnell, presumably to congratulate him on shredding the Irish secondary, and Gunnell stuck a finger in Jimmy’s face wanting nothing to do with it. Jimmy lightly shoved him away, walked off, and that was it.

Here’s Jimmy’s side of it:

“To be honest I was just going up to him to say he’s a heck of a receiver and if you saw out there, he was making plays left and right, and he’s a real good talent. I was just going to say good game to him, and he was just a little frustrated I guess. I was just trying to say good game to him.”

Here’s Gunnell’s side of it:

“In the beginning of the game, we were warming up, running on the field and he’s out there chirping and talking all this trash and he pushed, I think, Justin Jarvis. He just pushed him for no reason, and I just looked at him like, ‘What are you doing? Who do you think you are?’

“He’s just sitting there still talking and then afterward, he was trying to be all friendly. I was like, ‘I don’t want to hear it now.’”

I’m not ready to make any radical statements about either player. If Jimmy was talking trash before the game, then I can see Gunnell’s point. That said, I highly doubt that Clausen was the only guy out there chirping, and would be surprised if he was out shoving a 6-foot-5 wide receiver in pregame, especially with the love fest that was going on between teams.

At worst, it was a semi-bush league move by Gunnell to be putting fingers in Clausen’s face after the game while he’s trying to congratulate you on a good game, but I’ve got no problem with the way either guy handled it.