The NCAA Rules Committee, who apparently hates football the way it is and is committed to making it worse every year, has yet another wonderful addition to the game we love. (HT to Senator Blutarsky for commenting on this early this morning.)
In order to allow officials’ imperfect, snap judgments to more fully impact the outcome of a game and in order to take another measure of emotion out of the game, the Rules Committee wants to penalize unsportsmanlike conduct as a live ball foul. For example, a player diving across the goal line when no one is near him will now be penalized from the spot of the foul. (Assuming no one is too close to him, and the official has a good angle, and it’s inappropriate according to his sensibilities at the moment and myriad other unspoken, unwritten factors.)
I was going to write a detailed post about how this will lead to the unintended consequence of officials playing an even larger part in who wins a game. (See LSU @ Georgia 2009). I was also going to wonder if there is some pressing problem that needs to be addressed, but this has been done already.
In response to former Oregon Coach and Committee Chair Mike Belotti’s comment: “This is just another step in maintaining our game’s image and reflecting the ideals of the NCAA overall.”
Cocknfire at Team Speed Kills retorts:
First of all — this is just another step in maintaining the game’s image as seen by 50-plus-year-olds, Mr. Bellotti. You do not get to define the game for everyone else, whether you believe you do or not.
GamecockMan at Garnet and Black Attack echoes my concerns:
Paging Mike [Belotti]: your officials have not handled these [sportsmanship] rules well, and that, for me, is precisely the problem with this proposal and with celebration penalties as they already exist. Look, I’m all for limiting taunting. Acts that could provoke violence on the field unquestionably need to be regulated. However, the grey area comes in when we start talking about “excessive individual acts.” What is such a thing? I’m not exactly sure, and the inconsistency with which officials throw flags on it makes me think that they’re not so sure, either.
Spencer Hall, at the always excellent Everyday Should Be Saturday, notes:
Teams should control how the game is played on the field, and the referee should be a pleasant afterthought. More rules yield more thinking by officials, and no more so than when they are asked to evaluate the very subjective issue of content. If you think this isn’t the bitterest of sports comedies now, wait until you give very white SEC officials the authority to revoke a score based on the behavior of VERY EXCITED 18-22 year old predominantly black football players. His braids were provoking the other team, coach. I had to throw the flag.
Matt Hinton, at the indispensable Dr. Saturday, concludes:
No individual expression during the culmination of months and years of hard work, or we’ll take your touchdown away. With the money at stake in the game today, it was inevitable, but there’s no turning back now for the amateur version of the No Fun League.
It’s at this time every year that I am left asking myself, why is the NCAA Rules Committee filled with people who don’t like NCAA Football?
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