On Thursday night, in the inaugural game of the Pinstripe Bowl, Kansas State battled Syracuse in an exciting game. The game featured big play after big play. One of the most exciting plays of the game happened in the fourth quarter. With 1:13 left to play Kansas State running back Adrian Hilburn scored on a 30 yard TD run to pull within 2 points of Syracuse. After scoring such a potential game changing TD Hilburn celebrated in the end zone by saluting the fans. This seemingly harmless TD celebration irked or offended the officiating crew so much they threw a penalty flag and issued Kansas State a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. This meant Kansas State had to try the 2 point conversion from the 17 yard line, an extremely harder feat to pull off. After missing the 2 point conversion and failing to recover the onside kick Kansas State ended up losing the game 36-34. Although the penalty wasn't the only reason for the lose, Kansas State fans have a legitimate gripe with the officials. Their overly aggressive enforcement of the excessive celebration rule made the 2 point conversion astronomically harder to convert.
The intent of the excessive celebration rule is a good thing. It was put in place to prevent players from mocking or disrespecting the opposing team and from setting a poor example of sportsmanship. For such a visible and influential organization it is good that they are trying to set a positive example. Unfortunately, this eagerness to penalize players for celebrating after scoring important plays is all to common in college football. Players are routinely penalized for minor things such as an inadvertent spike in the wrong direction or a to exuberant fist pump. As in the Pinstripe Bowl or the BYU vs UW game in 2008, these penalties can have an impact on games.
NCAA college football officials need to change their current way of determining when to call excessive celebration penalties. If a player gets in the face of an opposing player or blatantly disrespects the fans they should be penalized. When a player is just celebrating an exciting result without obviously offending anyone, let it go. In such an adrenaline driven sports players need a way to let off a little when something goes their way. There is no reason that the outcome of a game should be put into question because a player decided to celebrate a touchdown with a salute.
Sources: Seattle Times, Yahoo Sports
No comments:
Post a Comment