2009 NCAA College Football

I agree that a rule change like that seems excessive, but is it really that hard for the scoring team to hand the ball back to the ref and jog off the field after a score? Is it really that hard for the wide receiver to protect the ball while scampering into the end zone instead of pretending to hand the ball back to the defender? The rule doesn't mean you can't celebrate a score. You just can't be a jackass about it. Let the fans in the stands be the jackasses.

Yeah, but it's a penalty on taunting, not celebrating. If you have the need to taunt someone you've just defeated, you're a poor sport and have a serious defect in your character. It should be enough that your superior athleticism won the day. There shouldn't be a need to grind your opponent into the ground afterwards. That's how we end up with guys like T.O.

This would be a horrible idea. I agree with Mattioli that I don't like taunting but the refs have more than enough to screw up now. They do not need any more chances to change the outcome of games.

Oddly enough my friend who coaches little league football almost got into a fist fight with the other coach due to a call very similar to this. A kid on his team taunted a kid chasing him right before he stepped into the endzone because it was the 4th time they ran the play and each time they picked up at least 20 yards. After about 5 minutes of bitching from the opposing coach, the ref assessed the penalty from the spot of the foul, the one yard line. The rule clearly states the TD counts and the penalty is assessed at kick off.

My buddy ran that same play for the remainder of the half (the penalty was in the first quarter) and went in up by 3 TD's.

ETA: I doubt anyone really cares but the kid doing the running in this play is the only black kid in the league and the other team was coached by a guy who always complained that the only reason my buddy would win was because of this kid. This crap trickled down to the teams and this kid was treated like crap by the opposing team. I don't like taunting but most of us cheered when he did it.

Can we start with a 15-yard penalty assessed against the Vols in the UF/Tennessee game thanks to Lane Kiffin?

Just to follow up on my earlier points and clarify, I don't support this rule change. I agree that the refs should not be given any further power to needlessly change the outcome of a game. That being said, I stand by my statement (not that anyone's disagreeing with me) that taunting an opponent is bush league. At the end of the day, there's already a mechanism in place to punish the taunting player and team and it's really the coach's place to punish the player. Maybe too many of today's coaches are falling down on the job.

Well, Spring ball is starting up. Anyone have any big worries about this season? As an OSU fan, I'm worried about Pryor growing as a passer and finding some standout receivers. On the positive side, some of the more poisonous older guys are gone so maybe the offense will be a little more cohesive this year. We will see, I suppose.

Bowden's "killing a flea with a hammer" line is hysterical. The football team loses virtually nothing (1.1% of scholarships over the course of 4 years is nothing). The only penalty is that Bowden loses some victories.

Which means Joe Paterno pretty much has the all-time victory mark wrapped up.

More often than not, losing wins doesn't matter. In the record books, Michigan basketball went 0-fer for the second half of the 90s. And you know who cares? Nobody. Losing victories is absolutely meaningless as only a rare few remember. Yeah it sucks having the Big Ten banners taken down, but whatever, it didn't impact the program going forward.

So while the other FSU programs lose victories, it's a slap on the wrist with a feather duster. The only teeth to the punishment is Bowden losing victories. And for something so widespread, its tough to think there wasn't some practice of willful ignorance by the entire athletic department.

Which is really just restoring the way it should be (stupid 31 Stamford victories).

Move over Tim Tebow - it's John Brantley time!

I wish that article had a byline. Maybe it was written by Isaiah Thompson.

Went to the spring game for Ohio State this weekend, along with 95,000 other people. National Spring Game record. It was a lot of fun. Our token under-acheiving running back, Brandon Saine, is looking good for the first time in 2 years. Maybe Pryor won't have to do all of our running this season. I don't put much stock in the spring game but it's good to see the guys out on the field.

Holy crap. I thought the Penn State faithful were crazy. We ended up with 76,500 in Beaver Stadium for Blue/White.

So many people showed up because they knew they were guaranteed to see Ohio State win.

Burn!

Good point. I thought so many showed up because Jim Tressel was wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

I know none of you, besides Mattioli, care about Big Ten football but Indiana apparently kicked Kellen Lewis off the team today. He was the starting QB last season and they made him switch to WR for this upcoming season but I'm kind of surprised by this. He always seemed like a good kid. I always feel bad when players get kicked off a team, like Perriloux from LSU last year. Indiana probably isn't going to be very good either way but Lewis was their best WR since he switched. Too bad.

Did everyone hear about the Gator who got tazed? I thought a couple of you Seminole fans would find it as amusing as I did.

Janoris Jenkins. Still not as infamous as the Dwight Schintzius "tennis racket" incident on Main Street, but yeah, it is still amusing after the whole "don't tase me, bro" ordeal.

Florida Times-Union article

I'm not going to say I'm proud of this, but it's hilarious to me that it's somebody's job at the TU to keep count. What, do they have a tote board at the sports editor's desk? Or do they just put tally marks on the wall like a a prisoner counting off the days?

I found it very humorous until I realized I had just before that finished reading about one of our WRs who (allegedly) threw a chair at a woman in a fight. Sigh...our WRs have more legal problems than Suge Knight.

The funnier incident was, at Vanderbilt, when the Vandy fans did that and got two technical fouls on the Commodores.. which sent the game into overtime, and Florida won.

After that, we figured we'd just send fans to all our road games with tennis balls and get all kinds of free throws.

Its amazing how much the NCAA are dicks. I really hope one day a school takes them on to the point where it gets to a serious politica level and the NCAA gets shot down by someone with authority. If I was a Florida lawyer with too much free time I'd be going after them like mad for violating the open records act.

Hey MM, have you noticed the change in tone over Bowden's remaining tenure? I think they've told him there is ZERO chance in hell that he stays on past 2010 as they won't pay Fisher the $5 million penalty. A good friend of mine recently spoke with Spetman too and he came away from that conversation convinced Spetman has it under control and Bobby won't be able to hold the school hostage much longer.

Best place for this, I suppose.

Today, in the last day of the MLB draft, this came across from the New York Yankees in round 48.

"The New York Yankees select Patrick White. We'd like him listed as a quart....er, I mean, center fielder. West Virginia University."

An incoming Ohio State freshman RB, Jamaal Berry, got arrested yesterday with an ounce of pot. At least the Buckeyes are screwing up like every other team, I guess.

All of this is EXCELLENT news for FSU. Watch out folks, our slow and steady rise out of mediocrity is about to happen. All those prayers to Burt Reynolds have been a success!

So, not a good day to be Erin Andrews, is it? I feel bad for that lady.

I feel bad for her as well....but I damn sure want to find that video! I am a healthy heterosexual male after all. I need to find proof that good looking women went to UF.

Have the SEC Media days lost their importance? The only two newsworthy things that came out of it is that Steve Spurrier doesn't fill out his own Preseason All-SEC ballot and that Tim Tebow doesn't believe in premarital sex. Although.. I guess there's not a whole lot else going on in July.

This is sad. Tebow, Tebow, Tebow. The man should be getting more women than Brad Pitt! Sigh, yet another reason to be let down by a Gator. FSU's players may be getting arrested but at least they get some tail.

UNA (and Florence, Ala.) is the mecca of Division II football. The Harlon Hill trophy (the DII version of the Heisman) is based there and they've hosted the DII National Championship a ton of times. Bowden the Younger's mission is to return the Lions to their "glory years", and they compete in what is probably the toughest DII conference in the nation, the Gulf South Conference - home of Valdosta State, Delta State and other perennial contenders.

And now back to your regularly scheduled Tebow talk...

This is where I grew up, went to the 1st couple of Div II championship games FLorence hosted, back when UNA racked up three championships in a row.

UNA used to keep just one lion for a long time, but they all kept dying at a relatively young age. They finally realized it was from loneliness and boredom brought on by having a pack animal alone in a cage, so wised up and finally got two.

I took one class there over the summer while home between terms at UA, and you could here the lion roaring all the time while sitting in class.