Here at GABA, we've discussed the NCAAs asinine plan to make celebration penalties live-ball fouls. We'll, we're one step closer to seeing the NCAA continue to ruin the game we love:
Both proposals were announced Thursday by the Football Rules Committee and must now be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel.
As if it wasn't painful enough to hear that the NCAA continues to explore this possibility, former Oregon Ducks coach Mike Bellotti had the audacity to treat college football fans like idots:
"Taunting and prolonged individual acts have no place in our game, and our officials have generally handled these rules well," said former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, the committee chair. "This is just another step in maintaining our game's image and reflecting the ideals of the NCAA overall."
Paging Mike: your officials have not handled these 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. If a rule is so poorly understood and subjectively interpreted, it has no place in the rules book, especially when we've seen several incidents over the past few years in which officials have clearly altered the outcomes of games by throwing flags on what looked to be simple displays of emotion. You know, the kind of emotion you would expect a football player to exhibit after a huge play late in a game. Georgia-LSU and Washington-BYU are the two examples that most easily come to mind, but there are others.
In short, screw you, NCAA. This rule is BS.