Urban could not have come off looking any worse after this whole debacle

….can the SEC suspend or fine “reporters” and other members of the media who continue to ask stupid fucking questions or make incrediably over-sensationized statements on air?

This week really brought out my latent political rage that has been sleeping peacefully for a couple years now. The media sensationalism and narratives, knee-jerk reactions by prejudiced observers, and Mike Slive’s public school style zero tolerance policy seem more appropriate for a night of Fox News than getting on with some footbawl.

What a train wreck. I need to stick to the comedy blogs for my CFB news.

So is #1 imolying that once some hayseed points out a bad act on behalf of your team you are forever estopped from pointing out their the other team’s bad acts? Quickest to upload to youtube earns the immunity? That sounds downright un-American.

Slive will never suspend a coach for criticizing officials. At least not a coach that puts butt in the seats. Because he knows who butters his bread, and it ain’t the refs.

I should stop commenting from my phone…typos galore.

Kiffin responded — tactfully — to Meyer’s comments following Wednesday’s practice.

“Urban Meyer … criticized the officials? That will be interesting to see,” Kiffin said of what the league office’s reaction might be.

But wasn’t public criticism of officials supposed to cease?

“You guys got the same memo that I got,” Kiffin told reporters.

Meyer commented on officials just a couple days after he announced a half-game suspension for his star linebacker, Brandon Spikes, who had tried to gouge the eyes of a Georgia player. Kiffin has viewed the tape of that play.

“Yea, I saw it on replay. It was pretty bad,” Kiffin said. “But we are worried about our team and what we can control. We have a lot of work to do. Obviously, Urban will discipline his team. Or not.”

yea, b/c he will be as missed against Vandy as Spikes will…calculated criticism natch.
Of course, of ANYONE to grumble about a missed call, Urbs would have been my last guess.

ZZGator~

To clarify, my point was that intentionally trying to blind someone warrants more than a “half-game” suspension. I feel that Urban sends the wrong message by giving his best defensive player a slap on the wrist.

And then to bitch later in the week about some questionable non-calls that had no influence in a seemingly easy victory just seems petty.

All I’m saying is that he had numerous opportunities to take the high road, but he didn’t.

haybeav,

you could of almost made a point, but there ya had to go and look all stupid by typing “intentionally trying to blind someone”

Re #9

As Spikes never actually made contact with the Georgia players eyes, and indeed wasn’t even seen until after the game, I’d say that incident also had no influence.

I fart in the general direction of this entire mess.

I guess we must be talking about different incident, because the one I saw was this guy on the Florida team sticking his hands inside another players helmet trying to poke him in the eye while he lay in a dog pile without any means of defending himself. Which play are you talking about?

Now that I think about it some more, I realize how silly this whole argument is. Obviously, everyone has their own opinion about the incident, and it’s really a waste of time and energy to argue about something that we can’t change so lets all just agree that Auburn sucks.

All you saw was “this guy on the Florida team sitcking his hands inside another player’s helmet”. Period.

The rest is speculation on your part.

However, Auburn does suck.

EXACTLY zz

…I’ve been poked harder on facebook

an ol’ fashion hockey facewash and fingers seeking eye sockets are two completely different things.

“Could of”? Good fucking night.

Hockey players are no doubt laughing at this entire debacle….then putting in their false teeth and heading back over the boards.

@ #10-11 -

Really guys? I wonder what the police would say if I randomly fired a gun in the general direction of some people. If I didn’t actually hit any of them, there’s no way they’d charge me with attempted murder, right? Especially if I only shot in that direction because previously someone had yelled at me.

Good evening Holly!

Good Lord…we’re back to the gunplay argument? I’m gonna go watch The Golden Girls.

….this is too good not to share:

Originally Posted by VolNation74 on GatorCountry Forum:
What would you expect him to say?

Totally UNREAL how some of you are defending trying to gouge someone’s eyes out. Almost unbelievable. BIG difference in sticking your fingers in a man’s eyes than a late hit or something. That happens all the time and is not always intentional.

BUT, digging your fingers into someone’s eyes IS intentional, its NOT a part of the game in any way. Its the equivalent of Haynesworth stomping on that Cowboy players head a few years ago. Even worse.

If someone had tackled Timmy and started that dirty crap, you guys would be calling for his arrest and imprisonment. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.

THE REPLY

Whats UNREAL is how many living-room-referees slurp the scum off of the cesspool that is ESPN’s journalistic integrity without taking the time to form logical thoughts.

Let’s start with the facts:

1) Video clearly shows that Brandon Spikes’ hand was inside Ealey’s facemask. It wasn’t an accident, it didn’t slip. Spikes put it there intentionally.
2) That is ALL the video shows. There is no eyeball on the field, no pool of blood.
3) Ealey played the next down. No timeout while trainers had to attend to him, no Visine, nothing.
4) Ealey, not his coach, teammate, girlfriend, grandmother, or even one of his rabid fans, but Ealey, said that Spikes didn’t get near his eyes.

These are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed.

Moving on to logical deductions based on facts. Please remove your Orange and Blue, Creamsicle, or Crimson glasses (or your gently-used black helmets) as you enter the Realm of Intelligent Thought.

You don’t know WHAT Spikes was doing with his hand in there. The only actual allusion to intent was when Meyer acknowledged at his “sentencing hearing” that the incident was some form of retaliation. So we can agree that he wasn’t picking a piece of spinach out of his teeth. What NOBODY KNOWS based on the video is whether he was wiping Ealey’s spit back in his face from the previous play, or he stuck his hand up his butt and was giving him the dirty sanchez, or if he was in fact “gouging” his eyes. So lets examine the rest of the evidence and see if we can narrow down the field…

Can we agree that as Ealey was down after the tackle and was holding onto the ball, Spikes had fairly free access to his facemask? Buckle up kids, because here comes some independent thought (please don’t tell ESPN). If A) Spikes intended to gouge Ealey’s eyes, and B) Ealey was effectively defenseless to such an attack, then C) Spikes would have been at least moderately successful in his endeavor. Since Ealey did not show even the smallest sign of having experienced eye trauma, and, more importantly, Ealey himself stated that Spikes did not get near his eyes, then the premise that Spikes intended to gouge his eyes out MUST BE FALSE.

Now, once you remove “eye gouging” as a possibility, you’re left with a much less compelling argument for Brandon Spikes being executed. You should try going back and watching the whole game instead of super-slow-motion replays of Spikes and Ealey. Count the number of times the ref’s jumped in and prevented fights from breaking out. Count the number of helmet slaps, shoves, and late hits that went unnoticed. The ref’s did a pretty good job of letting that stuff go and allowing the teams to play it out rather than calling a personal foul on every play, even though they probably could have. It was an extremely intense rivalry game, and the dirty play was being dished out accross the board. I’m not arguing that the dawgs were worse than the Gators, and I’m not implying that Spikes was at all justified in sticking his hand inside Ealey’s helmet. I don’t care if Spikes was provoked, it was a bad move. All I’m saying is that like Chris Rock, I UNDERSTAND.

Now how many games would be enough for you? One? Two? The bowl game (that’s the game played at the end of the year after you’ve won at least half of your games, in case you Vol fans have forgotten)? The guy screwed up. I’ll give you that. What you don’t know is motive or intent, and you don’t even have a victim. Even Ealey thinks you’re blowing this out of proportion.

@19:

You dumb shit. As pointed out at #15, there’s no evidence that Spikes was trying to poke Ealey’s eyes.

Here’s another analogy for you: what would YOU say if the police showed up and said they saw you holding your arm out in a horizontal position, and that clearly meant you were trying to shoot this one guy, so now you’re charged with attempted murder.

Hopefully, you’d get the chair.

The entire season is unraveling!

We need a guest speaker to regain our poise. We need Howard Schnellenberger.

Holy crap is this tiresome.
The SEC news cycle is on a Favre level at this point.

22: Nice. I lost my mouthwash at “dirty sanchez.”

Shit, I almost skipped that cross-post thinking it was some earnest rehash of the same old garbage. That was funny.

@22 – thanks for that post! gosh, reason. @25- true dat, can we all move on now? jeebus, let’s just play some futbawl. LSU vs. Bama this Saturday- good stuff.

Danny Ainge sez this is all pussy shit. Just bite an opponent’s finger right on camera during the playoffs and own up to it.

Of course, if you do that it’s better to do it to someone smaller than you and not Tree Rollins.

All of you accusers of Brandon Spikes…you sound like horrified sorority girls, and I have proof. Just read your own comments. There is more hype about this than there was when Tyson tried to bite off Holifield’s ear. Get a clue people!

This whole debate his hilarious.

Non-Florida fan: “Spikes was caught on camera trying to KILL THE MAN! AND STEAL HIS FIRST UNBORN CHILD”

Florida fan: “Spikes was caught on camera putting his hand inside the helmet. BUT THATS IT! HE WASN’T TRYING TO CAUSE ANY HARM! IT WAS A SIGN OF RESPECT IN HIS NATIVE ALIEN LAND OF GORK!”

Will both sides admit that yes, Spikes didn’t gauge anyone’s eyes but also that putting your hand inside a face mask is within range of the eyeballs and moving it around is generally not done with good intentions.

Of course not, this is SEC football.

I’ll wear jorts to the Auburn game if Meyer is fined or suspended. NOT A CHANCE. Particularly since it relates to the slurpee-in-chief, Tebow.

You know NatiJacket…a wet willie isn’t done with GOOD intentions but I’m fairly sure it isn’t done with the intent to injure. OMG my brother just tried to bust my eardrums and deafen me!!!!

Speaking of jorts, why all the hate around the SEC on jort wearing fans? Are we not talking about one of the most versitile articles of clothing ever invented? Do they not serve both a utilitarian AND fashionable purpose? Are they not comfortable? And are they not a free pair of shorts once your jeans get old and worn out?

But zzgator, you don’t know that either. You can’t put a hand in someone’s facemask. And I think there is probably a good reason why “no harm, no foul” isn’t in the US legal code. Listen, do I think that Spikes deserves to be booted, no, should he get suspended a game or two, yes. Hell, even if Spikes intent wasn’t to injure the guy, the eyeball isn’t exactly the toughest organ in the body. He could have easily injured him on accident. It’s a fricken hand in a facemask!

Wow, last 2 to 3 days, all reason be damned by both sides. And this time not all of it was because of me.

Meyer will definitely be at least fined, which would actually make a good face-saving escape for Slive. If you think otherwise, you underestimate the need of bureaucrats to assert their authority.

Yet oddly enough there is a penalty for “hands to the face” and it doesn’t involve multiple game suspensions. I suppose every other personal foul ever witnessed in football was completely unintentional. Can there not be a difference between thinking what he did was wrong and thinking he was trying to permanently injure an opponent and should be crucified for it?

Anybody here seen “The Lives of Others?”

Bull Gator – I think of jorts as pre-made denim shorts (ideally with a strap to hold your “paint brush”), not cut-off jeans. I might not wear either, but I’ve got no beef with cut-offs.

Funny how the two girl commenters agree – let’s move on, you bunch of whining pussies.

I do hope Meyer is fined, though. /rubs hands together in anticipatory delight

There is gonna be a knife fight in a phone booth Saturday afternoon in T-Town. Can we not talk about that bloodbath?