Last weekend, in LSU’s matchup with Florida, Les Miles dialed up one of his patented trick plays. On fourth and 15 from LSU’s own 48, Miles instructed punter Brad Wing to run a fake punt.@@http://alabama.scout.com/a.z?s=14&p=2&c=1115250&ssf=1&RequestedURL=http%3a%2f%2falabama.scout.com%2f2%2f1115250.html@@
Wing executed the play to perfection. After a brief pause, he took off to his left, with only open pitch in front of him. All he needed was one block and Wing was gone, fulfilling the dream of every punter in America.
Nearly 100,000 fans at Tiger Stadium went crazy. Wing’s teammates mobbed him in the end zone. Viewers at home exploded off their couches.@@http://www.lsusports.net/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=205313068&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=5200@@
Only, because of a rule change implemented by the NCAA this past offseason, it was all for naught. At around the 10-yard line, Wing extended his arms to his side and looked back at a Florida player, which, according to the official rulebook, constituted a taunting violation. Because of a 15-yard penalty, Wing’s touchdown, perhaps the greatest moment of his athletic career, was wiped off the board, for making a seemingly harmless gesture.
Following the game, Steve Shaw, the SEC supervisor of football officials, released a statement about the call.@@http://bleacherreport.com/articles/884707-lsu-football-unsportsmanlike-celebration-penalty-is-uncalled-for@@
“Based on what was seen on the television replays, the LSU player turned towards two Florida players and made a taunting gesture,” Shaw said. “The rule as stated in the rule book was accurately applied.”
I’m not the first, nor will I be the last, to rail against the injustice of this anti-taunting “rule.” In the moments following the play, Twitter was fraught with outrage.
ESPN college football analyst Chris Fowler tweeted: “Celebration call on Aussie punter to wipe out LSU TD was a joke. That’s what rules committee finds ‘excessive?’ ludicrous.”@@ce@@
As you would expect, Fowler’s reaction was shared by many, myself included. There are numerous potential problems raised by an excessive celebration penalty that actually takes points off the scoreboard.
First and foremost, asking referees to make yet another judgment call over the course of a game is a bad idea. Determining the fine line between healthy celebration and taunting is no easy task, particularly in the pressure-filled environment of a packed stadium. If a taunting call actually costs a team a game, look out.
Further, I’m concerned that the taunting rule, implemented under the guise of sportsmanship, is merely another device the NCAA is using to distract fans and pundits from college football’s seedy underbelly.
It seems as if NCAA has gone out of its way to moralize the game, somehow believing that if players act more gentlemanly, it will somehow mitigate, or at least make people forget, about all the issues that permeate college football.
By now, you’re probably familiar with many of them — conference expansion with an eye toward the interests of everyone but the athletes themselves; a totally distorted player compensation model; questionable rules with even more questionable rule-enforcement policy … the list goes on indefinitely.
Perhaps instead of focusing on window dressing, such as outlawing taunting and barring players from wearing messages on their eye black, the NCAA’s power players should place their energy where it really matters — on agenda items like improving concussion protocol, which should be standardized and far more conservative than the NFL’s, or maybe providing full cost-of-attendance scholarships, a long-discussed change that no administrator has any motivation to implement.
Heck, providing a travel stipend that would allow players to take a few free trips home to see family wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
And at the very least, if, for some reason, the NCAA hierarchy is too thick-headed, too stuck in its profitable ways to make a change, it should at least let the players enjoy themselves on game day without the threat of a poor celebration choice affecting the outcome of the game.
I doubt even the most blue-and-orange-bleeding Gator fan would object to that.