MSU police Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor said usually games against bigger schools, such as Notre Dame or University of Michigan, require more police activity.

But to her surprise, arrests were down from the last Notre Dame home game in 2010. That year, there were about 103 arrests total on the game day. This year, MSU police only made 57 arrests.
Many of the incidents reported from the weekend took place around the stadium before or during the game Saturday.

The East Lansing Police Department, or ELPD, also reported a surprisingly mild weekend, ELPD Capt. Jeff Murphy said.

“For as many people we had in town, the vast majority of them acted responsibly and just came to town for all of the right reasons,” Murphy said.

The ELPD weekend report showed seven disorderly conduct arrests Friday and 17 on Saturday. Although that might be a high number for a weekend without a home football game, Murphy said it was relatively low.

“That’s 17 people out of thousands and thousands and thousands on Saturday, so that’s not too far out of the ordinary,” Murphy said.

The ELPD also reported 11 minor-in-possession arrests on Friday and 12 on Saturday. In comparison, the weekend of Sept. 7-9, the ELPD only made three minor-in-possession arrests.

Murphy said although most of the weekend was good, ELPD officers commonly stopped people for carrying open liquor or alcohol containers on the streets.

“Once in a while, people think when they come to East Lansing on a game day, the rules don’t apply,” Murphy said.

Chemical engineering junior Will Loomans said he thought there were a lot more police out on game day, and he saw a few people get arrested outside of Spartan Stadium.

Loomans said he expects it was because of the rivalry of the Notre Dame game.

“If (cops) see something on a Friday they won’t ask a lot of questions,” Loomans said. “On game days if they see something suspicious, even if they don’t make an arrest, they’ll at least ask questions.”

Staff writer Lilly Keyes contributed to this report.