chris975d
macrumors 68000
Fine. See if I report anything again. Ungrateful little....
I was moving all weekend, so I was way out of the loop. We got to move these refrigerators, we got move these color TVs.
Anyway, I saw this article on the rule change next year that will take touchdowns off the board for excessive celebration. Lame! Yeah, let's let the refs decide if the TD stays on the board or not. It's like what happened to K-State in the bowl game, only instead of moving back the conversion try for a lame penalty, they wipe the TD off the board completely.
I'm not so sure about this rule. I think it's going to be ok for the most part. As far as I can tell, most people don't understand it. I was watching ESPN earlier in the year, when talk of the new rule came out. They had an interview with someone from the NCAA rules committee on to explain it. According to him, the only time the rule comes into play is when a player begins celebrating BEFORE he crosses the goal line. For example...if a player breaking away for a touchdown starts "high stepping" on the 3 or 4 yard line, or pointing to the crowd, or an opposing player/sideline, taunting, stopping at the goal line and "falling" backward into the endzone, an unnecessary dive into the endzone, etc, then the penalty is "at the spot of the foul", even if the play is still going. If the player has already crossed the goal line before the celebration infraction occurs, then the touchdown stands and the penalty is assessed like it always has. So in the Kansas State example from this bowl season, and the UGA/LSU game that MacDawg referenced (I loved that game! 😀 ), the penalty would have been assessed the "old" way and no points removed. At least that's the way the person from the NCAA explained it, but if you look at the title of the article you linked... "Celebrating too much BEFORE TDs? Players to learn it's pointless" (key word being "before"), that seems to go along with what he said in that interview. If this is the way it's done, then I don't think I really have a problem with it. If a player commits the violation before he enters the endzone...fine...pull the points. Make it a "spot foul". But if they do that, I also think pass interference should be a spot foul. It's too easy for a defensive back who knows he's burned for a touchdown to purposely pass interfere and save the touchdown when he knows it's just a 15 yard penalty from the previous spot. Players are coached to do that when they know they are beat.
Added: The only area I see potential issues with the "new" excessive celebration penalty is that it also applies to all players on the scoring team. So, if the player scoring the touchdown doesn't commit a violation, but before he crosses the goal line one of his teammates "taunts"/points at/gets in the face of an opposing player/says something derogatory/some other celebration violation, the touchdown will be invalid. That might cause some issues.