Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy are in an open social media feud after El-Sayed joked about his alma mater’s football program and Portnoy accused him of acting like a terrorist.
El-Sayed, a University of Michigan graduate, had said in a clip: “Is Michigan going to win a game without cheating? I say this as a Wolverine.” Portnoy fired back on X: “This guy really is a terrorist.”
El-Sayed did not let it go. On Saturday he posted a clip of Portnoy sprinting on a turf field and wrote: “Meanwhile, here’s [Portnoy] committing an act of athletic terrorism. Less pizza, more gym, habibi.”
The exchange pulled El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, into the mix. Rogers shared Portnoy’s post and declared Portnoy “is exactly right.” Asked by The Detroit News whether Rogers actually believes El-Sayed is a terrorist, his spokeswoman Alyssa Brouillet said: “Parroting Ohio State talking points is a bridge too far.”
Michigan’s cheating history
El-Sayed’s joke landed against the backdrop of Michigan’s real sign-stealing scandal. In August 2025, the NCAA hit the program with multimillion-dollar financial penalties, recruiting restrictions and four additional years of probation after finding an impermissible scouting scheme tied to former staffer Connor Stalions.
In 2024, the football program had already admitted to impermissible recruiting contacts during the COVID-19 dead period, improper tryouts and unauthorized coaching by noncoaching staff. The NCAA separately concluded that former coach Jim Harbaugh gave false or misleading information to investigators.
The program’s rap sheet goes back further. Under former coach Rich Rodriguez, Michigan got three years of probation in 2010 and lost 130 hours of practice time over excessive training violations. The basketball program was sanctioned over booster Ed Martin’s improper loans to four players, including Chris Webber, which cost the school forfeited wins, scholarships and four years of probation.
Bigger fights brewing
The football spat is a sideshow to tougher questions El-Sayed has faced over Iran and Islamist groups. At a September town hall, Iranian-American student Iman Dashti described alleged mistreatment of his family by Iranian authorities and pushed El-Sayed to condemn the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Islamic Republic outright. El-Sayed instead argued against American-led regime change and said Iran’s people should decide their own government — an answer critics said dodged the question.
On Oct. 5, Fox News host Martha MacCallum repeatedly asked El-Sayed whether he supports terrorist designations for Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. He said he’d support designating groups that engage in political violence but stopped short of naming the Brotherhood directly. Rogers brought up the same issue again at their Oct. 8 debate. El-Sayed also would not say whether Iran or Israel poses the bigger threat to the United States, saying each has been dangerous in its own way.
El-Sayed has condemned Hamas directly. On “The Jim Acosta Show” in August, he said: “I think they’re wrong. I think they committed war crimes,” while also accusing Israel of war crimes and genocide.
El-Sayed has also been a longtime critic of football culture. In an October 2021 essay written after the resignation of then-Raiders coach Jon Gruden over racist, homophobic and misogynistic emails, El-Sayed wrote that “toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport” ran deeper than Gruden’s messages, recalling racist taunting he experienced in football locker rooms and arguing coaches need to confront that culture directly.
