NCAA NOT CONTENT WITH DUMB RULE, WANTS DUMBER
Oh, go fuck yourselves with a traffic cone, Rules Committee. For four years running every offseason has seen the dilation of the mental sphincter of the Rules Committee, a great groaning noise, and the plopping forth of a great, steaming heap of stupidity: rule 3-2-5-e, the hasty rescinding of 3-2-5-e, the establishment of taunting penalties in the first place, the appearance and then the complete non-enforcement of the horse-collar rule…it’s quite a resume of shitty ideas and shitty implementation on the whole, and it’s become a rite of the offseason to watch them poop like clockwork on some otherwise tolerable or even good part of college football.
This year’s installment, fresh and hot from the brain-ass of the Committee:
The NCAA football rules committee wants coaches to debate turning some dead-ball celebration penalties into live-ball fouls, which could result in taking points off the scoreboard.
Chairman Mike Bellotti, Oregon’s coach, cautioned this was not yet a formal proposal and is not likely to take effect for at least two years.
The committee wants to gauge support among coaches. If the rule was eventually changed, players who begin taunting opponents before reaching the end zone could have those touchdowns called back.
Thus further removing color and flair from the game, allowing nannying referees like Ron Cherry to exercise further sway over the course of the game, and emphasizing an outdated notion of sportsmanship that, as far as we can tell, has its roots in a deep hatred of fun or anything interesting. Oh, and we forgot one thing: MAY ACTUALLY AFFECT THE OUTCOME OF FUCKING GAMES MORE DRAMATICALLY THAN RULES ALREADY DO.
Die, Rules Committee. You die and go to hell. We’re dancing like Randall Hill in protest and firing imaginary six-shooters at you in protest. Verne and Gary join us, if only in image, in this noble struggle against your crapulent stupidity of emphasizing decorum over what is actually accomplished on the field.









1
Crabapple Buck says:
Had this rule been in effect during his career at tOSU, Santonio Holmes would have never scored a TD. He would however still have had 3 kids, so he would have scored off the field.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
2
westbrooke says:
I’m of the “act like you’ve been there before” mindset when it comes to scoring, touchdowns or otherwise. But this is pretty sick. How you score may reflect on your honor, but the fact that you scored shouldn’t be up for debate.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
3
Me says:
Argh!!!! Blackout! I forgot about it for about 10 days and then you gotta kneecap me, swindle.
Ok, karma-time: We made Tebo cry. Twice.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
4
Dawg 05 says:
The 2007 Georgia Bulldogs think this rule is complete BS and are proudly Crankin Dat Souja Boy in protest.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
5
hobeg8r says:
I still haven’t sufficiently recovered from the 15-yd. penalty Ron Cherry assessed against Looooouis Murphy for signaling a 1st down. And now this could be a possibility? WTF? I think the 3 – 2 (Miss St./Auburn score) could become the norm.
Rich Brooks thinks this is bullshit. And so do I.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
6
Doug says:
And thus the NCAA’s attempted New Cokening of my favorite sport continues unabated.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
7
Whiskey Wednesday says:
If this rule comes to fruition, how long will it be until it bites Ole Miss in the ass? I’m guessing as soon as we play Alabama.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
8
JL says:
I’ve contemplated forming a band of mercenaries, Daughters of the Confederacy (they like the domestic bloodshed), Tamil Tigers, Methodists, former IRA members, and Duncan Ferguson to go lay siege to the NCAA offices, but I’ve never seen a transgression of sport worthy of such an army. Oh, Rules Committee, you have given me such cause!
Who knows how to call Scotland?
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnPGV9f0F8A&feature=related)
February 11th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
9
Nate says:
the appearance and then the complete non-enforcement of the horse-collar rule my ass.
Florida doesn’t finsh that final drive against Alabama if it wasn’t for the horse-collar tackle called on Donta Hightower!!
February 11th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
10
Nile Kinnick's Faith Healer says:
@ Westbrooke – Totally agree.
Younger fans may not realize this, but there was actually a time when making an ass out of oneself was frowned upon. Now, it’s not only condoned but celebrated. If, as a child athlete, I had ever behaved like those Georgia players in the video clip, my mom would’ve adjusted her rings to make sure they would cut me, come out of the stands, and punched me in the face.
That said, not even I think celebration penalties should be live-ball fouls.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
11
Rick Muscles says:
Winner should be allowed celebrate as much as they want.
Losers should be put in their place.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
12
idahobuckeye says:
So uhhh…wow, this is stupid. I say every team should totally celebrate before scoring. A big middle finger to the fucking NCAA Sports Committee
February 11th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
13
DevilGrad says:
Why stop there? The NCAA could reinforce its APR policy by administering pop quizzes in the end zone and pulling down TDs for anyone who fails to score at least a 7 out of 10. Instant drug testing might work, too.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
14
softbatch says:
In the year 2012, making evil eyes at the QB will be a personal foul.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
15
idahobuckeye says:
Rules Committee I mean. Wow, they’ve got me so worked up about this that I’ve mistaken their identity for a non existent entity.
@#13-
In the year 2012, smiling will be a personal foul too.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
16
CincySooner says:
(barf)
please, coaches, shoot this shit down.
I think excessive celebrating is tacky, but if the player has the stones to do it, then let them do it, and enforce the penalty on the kickoff or extra point. Like the rule already stands. right now. before the rules committee fucked with it.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
17
The Tusk says:
WhisWed – assuming Ole Miss approaches the end zone…
If all coaches gave us the Nick Saban laser-eyes-vomitting-molten-lava reaction to stupid celebration penalties…oh, the NCAA would still fuck it up. Hopefully the coaches will shitcan this steaming pile with exteme prejudice.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
18
Crabapple Buck says:
This would be a terrible rule change. I still want my old clock rules back. I was cheated out of 7-14 plays per game last year. Why do they constantly screw with the best game on the planet?
February 11th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
19
Nile Kinnick's Faith Healer says:
@ #18
Because it needs to be more like the NFL, America’s favorite sport! [eyes rolling]
February 11th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
20
John says:
That dog loves this new rule.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
21
CKGator says:
You guys are missing the silver lining here–if they weren’t spending their ass-tacular cognitive powers on this, they’d just start screwing with something else, like non-contact QBs, shortening the game to 12 minute quarters, making the field 80 yards long (”our student athletes are over-exerting themselves”), or eliminating wins and losses entirely in favor of a BCS-like formula (”it creates discussion among the fans…the sport has never been healthier…”).
February 11th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
22
Nile Kinnick's Faith Healer says:
@ CKGator
You, sir, have an Ernie Banks-like PMA and an entirely valid point.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
23
Signal to Noise says:
Committees have to justify their existence every fucking off-season by coming up with rules that either don’t do a goddamn thing or make the game worse — and to judge how dumb a collective committee or group is, start at 100 and subtract five for every member involved.
Look, Bellotti and Co. We know you just want to go play some golf. So go do that, and say you’re taking some things under advisement. There’s no need to piss everyone off like this.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
24
Kecalf Bailey says:
9) the call on Donta was a facemask. The horsecollar call was earlier in the game on Rashad Johnson, I believe on a special teams play, though I’m not sure. The facemask rule was changed somewhat recently so that all flags are 15 yards, and Donta’s certainly would have been “of the 5 yard variety,” but it wouldn’t have mattered, it was 3rd and 2.
Also, how much creepier would it have been if Verne and Gary had really been able to do the souljaboy dance really really well?
February 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
25
Samir Nagheenanajar says:
Yes, this is horrible, this idea.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
26
SpartanDan says:
I’d call this proposed rule change “asinine”, but that would be the biggest understatement of the year to date. Taunting should be penalized as a dead-ball foul; celebration (unless it falls under the header of “taunting”) shouldn’t be penalized, period.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
27
DrB says:
While I dislike players showing their asses more than anyone, taking the game out of the participants hands and placing it under the discretion of an official seems asinine and does not align with the spirit of the sport. They have already fucked up game play enough by botching up clock rules on a yearly basis (the clock should stop after every possession change and every time a player goes out of bounds, no matter the situation. Why the fuck should a possession mid-way through the 3rd quarter be treated any different from a game clock stand point than the last drive of the game?).
February 11th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
28
Walk On Boy says:
Yeah, pretty much everyone can agree this is dumb. Like D-U-M level dum.
@ Crabapple 1 – What if Santonio was celebrating pre-coitus? Would the NCAA Rules Committee swoop in and place his children in foster homes?
And this opens up a potential for a huge fustercluck. {Hyper-hypothetical off the top of the head – what if Holloway raises his arms in the last five yards after the completed Hail Mary against LSU in 2005? They call the freaking thing back?!?!?}
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5ipzYMb2SQ&feature=related
Congratulations for providing an argument against bureaucracy NCAA RC.
February 11th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
29
Sean Glennon's Jersey says:
I for one would like to petition to ban that video and all references to Georgia’s 2007 season, since it makes me cry like a little girl at what could have been.
February 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
30
Big Jon says:
The nerd in me asks “will this be a spot foul or a previous line of scrimmage foul?” The Sun Devil in me says “oh crap, Dennis Erickson is my coach.” Like we don’t have enough problems on offense.
Also you quoted “celebration penalties,” and let’s get perfectly clear on something: Jake Locker vs BYU in 2008 was celebration and the 2007 UGA Coke Orgy was taunting, no? That rule ain’t better than Knowshon!!!1!
February 11th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
31
Running Joe Rides Again says:
@28 I would like to see a ref have the stupidity (stones?) to make a call like that.
May the rules committee die a slow, painful death if this happens.
February 12th, 2009 at 1:01 am
32
Anonymous IV says:
I see a lot of refs being given death threats if this rule passes. Oklahoma @ Oregon was nothing to what will be seen against the refs. Go ahead NCAA do your stuff. The scholar in me says this is the legacy that Myles Brand wants leave since he has cancer.
February 12th, 2009 at 3:37 am
33
OhioDawg says:
Go back to the rules circa 1965. All these revisions (including, most ridiculously, instant replay) should be gotten rid of. The point of these rules is to create interest in things other than the game itself.
Caveat: any rule legitimately related to safety should be considered: facemasking, for instance, is a great rule, even if it wasn’t around in 1965.
February 12th, 2009 at 8:30 am
34
Idahobuckeye says:
So you think fans would storm the field in anger if a game was fucked up because of this rule? That’s something I’d pay to see and if this rule passes, I hope it happens
February 12th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
35
Ron says:
Whose ass is getting licked, and how much are they paying? To even consider this as a rule stinks to high heaven!
February 12th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
36
Papa Lou BSU says:
Philosophically, I don’t have an issue with the *intent* of this rule (i.e., shut the hell up and act like you’ve been to the endzone before, jackasses), but with what would surely be the nightmare of execution of this rule (i.e., a total clusterfuck where broad-daylight, full-scale, circa-late-1980s-Hurricanes-style taunting will be met with indifference in the SEC, while a conference championship elsewhere will be decided by some redass official flagging a kid pumping for his fist once after scoring a dramatic, last-second TD).
I’ve always said that if they are really THAT concerned that too many unsportsmanlike penalties are getting off with the slap on the wrist, then make the rule as follows: if you get an unsportsmanlike while scoring a TD or immediately thereafter, the ball is placed at the 30-yard line for the PAT. That way, you don’t reward the defense for something that happened *after* they gave up a TD, and the notion of having to kick a 47-yard extra point will give coaches all the motivation they need to crack down on the nonsense.
But I agree that the Rules Committee is probably the most annoying group in sports. Tinker, tinker, tinker, when it ain’t broke. More meaningless, dumb rules have come out of that crew than any other sports governing body I can think of (those of us in non-BCS land recall the ill-fated, and utterly ridiculous attendance regulations that were mercifully killed after a failed one-year experiment about five years ago… these were rules that threatened to legislate upwards of 20-25 programs *out of Division I-A altogether,* over the one factor that a program has no measure of control over: the gate).
And yes, the new clock rules still suck.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:19 am
37
NEJhawk says:
The SEC is the whole reason this has to exist. A little excitement wouldn’t be bad….but I had to watch a Defensive Player from South Carolina who missed a tackle do pushups as soon as the play was over last year and now I’m all for this rule.
If there wasn’t a whole segment of the country that couldn’t see the difference between having a little fun and behaving like its the XFL, we would need to argue this at all.
Do any of you realize the dress code at my work says I can’t wear biker shorts? I wish I could have been there the day they decided they had to impliment THAT rule.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:38 am