http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5092774

Article is there, pretty big changes, never saw anything wrong with the eye black messages though... The big one is if you taunt someone on the way to the endzone, you get a flag and it's now a spot foul and they take away the touchdown. Thoughts?

Mr Pat wrote: The big one is if you taunt someone on the way to the endzone, you get a flag and it's now a spot foul and they take away the touchdown. Thoughts?

Dumb. A subjective "taunt" could change the entire complexity of a game during a situation where the outcome has nothing to do with said taunt (i.e. breakaway td and player is flagged for a taunting call when no defensive players are close). The rule was perfectly fine before.

No need to taunt, but I'd still let the play stand. If they're idiots and do it again in the game, send them to the showers. But I can't get mad about the rule. Take a big stand, bit the miny problem in the ass, so in 10 years, you don't have kids acting like D. Jackson in the Army game.. or even taunting. Most of those guys have scored many TD's in their day.. although none that big as it would be in a college game, but no reason to be a dick about it. Get pumped, love it, don't do anything to fire the other team up.

Odd that this is announced now since the big officiating clinic was last weekend.

Yeah, this will get ugly at some point this year. Taunting penalties sometimes are subjective and refs sometimes flag taunting when it shouldn't be called. An example would be Jake Locker a few years ago when he flagged for tossing the ball up in the air "too high". They missed the extra point and went on to lose every game that year.

Wow, that celebration rule is completely fucked and I guarantee it will ruin at least one game next year.

ohiotiger33 wrote: Wow, that celebration rule is completely fucked and I guarantee it will ruin at least one game next year.

I hope it's a big game that doesn't involve OSU.

jpake1 wrote: No need to taunt, but I'd still let the play stand. If they're idiots and do it again in the game, send them to the showers. But I can't get mad about the rule. Take a big stand, bit the miny problem in the ass, so in 10 years, you don't have kids acting like D. Jackson in the Army game.. or even taunting. Most of those guys have scored many TD's in their day.. although none that big as it would be in a college game, but no reason to be a dick about it. Get pumped, love it, don't do anything to fire the other team up.

I agree that the taunting and excessive celebration rules are subjective and will definitly screw someone before the season is over. It cannot be enforced evenly or fairly and therefore is a bad rule and will only call even more into play the honesty of the officiating and maybe even the integrity of the game. I'm against taunting and think it should be penalized but this is a bit much, as for excessive celebration, most of those calls are bullshit.

I thought of this scenario.

Last year during the Michigan ND Game, Tate Forcier ran for a TD and pointed up at the crowd in celebration. Shouldn't be a penalty right? He's celebrating with the team/fans.

Now, if he does it this year at ND Stadium, would he be taunting to ND fans and get a penalty?

A lot of rules are subjective to officials, but a rule like this could be subjective to the fans. Taunting could depend on what color jersey you are wearing (home or away) or where you are in the stadium (Are you pointing at the home fans or the visitor section)

bigkahuna wrote: I thought of this scenario.

Last year during the Michigan ND Game, Tate Forcier ran for a TD and pointed up at the crowd in celebration. Shouldn't be a penalty right? He's celebrating with the team/fans.

Now, if he does it this year at ND Stadium, would he be taunting to ND fans and get a penalty?

A lot of rules are subjective to officials, but a rule like this could be subjective to the fans. Taunting could depend on what color jersey you are wearing (home or away) or where you are in the stadium (Are you pointing at the home fans or the visitor section)

You've pointed out exactly why this is a dumb rule, people love football because of the emotion, quit trying to ruin the game.

Kahuna, I think it would be a penalty. In that game Allen got flagged 15 yards after their 2 point conversion to tie the game for doing the "shh" to the home team. I think the rule will matter who the team is.

Yea the taunting penalty is way too subjective, and its going to ruin a big time game, and you can take that to the bank.

I saw on ESPN that the rule is BEFORE the player scores.

Does this mean that a player could still taunt after the TD has been called.

I guess the question is did the taunt/flag get thrown before or after the goal line was crossed?

i'm not one for taunting, but its a game its supposed to be fun. maybe the ncaa just wants a bunch of robots.

bigkahuna wrote: I saw on ESPN that the rule is BEFORE the player scores.

Does this mean that a player could still taunt after the TD has been called.

I guess the question is did the taunt/flag get thrown before or after the goal line was crossed?

If the foul is before the score it is enforced from the spot of the foul.
If the foul is after the score, it is enforced either on the try or kickoff.

Glad to see they addressed some really important issues this offseason... :dodgy:

The taunting rule is way to excessive. The rule as written previously was already too subjective. Giving refs the authority to take points off the board on the basis taunting is asinine.

I don't know why you guys are talking so much about the taunting penalty.

What about the eye black?!? How am I supposed to know what scripture passage to read, now?! And am I supposed to just look up what area code a player's hometown is?! The eye black was a big source of information for me...and now I got nothing!

This just ruins my Saturdays now!

^^i think its quite the coincidence that this rule changed AFTER tebow is gone.

KnightRyder wrote: i'm not one for taunting, but its a game its supposed to be fun. maybe the ncaa just wants a bunch of robots.

+1000

I've always thought that NFL taunting and celebration should be more enforced more than college football. NFL players are paid to play football as their CAREER, therefore you could expect more professionalism from them. College players, while on scholarship, are not paid a salary that they get to spend on cars, homes, women, cost of living etc (unless you play for USC) in return for their services, and as some have already pointed out, college football is already seen as a more emotional brand of football than the NFL, especially when you talk about team celebrations.

And there will be a lot of people say, "yeah but they're representing their school and team/teammates/coach and are expected to do so the right way" which is true, but the problem I have (and have always had with subjective rules in college football) is who's to say what is acceptable and what isn't? Take this for an example:

It's the fourth quarter, with about 5 minutes left to go. The opposing team has just taken the lead, and this is likely the last time our example team will see the ball; basically make or break time. Player A fields a kickoff, breaks several tackles, a couple sweet moves and returns the kickoff 90 or 100 yards. As he is at about the 10 yard line going in (and way ahead of anyone else) he sticks his hand straight up in the air with his index finger up, basically doing the "#1" signal. The ref throws a flag for excessive celebration before crossing the goal line, thanks to our newly established rules, taking away the go-ahead score and placing the ball at the 25. The offense can't get the ball in the endzone, and loses a game that they scored enough points to win in, thanks to a flag.

On sportscenter later that night, a similar instance occurs in another game, and no flag is thrown because that officiating crew does not view the player as excessively celebrating/taunting the other team. Do you not think a shitstorm of controversy would start about a team losing a game due to a call like this, when another team did NOT have it called against them? Especially if it's a really high profile team like USC, Florida, Miami, Alabama, Texas, OU, or god forbid Ohio State? For those of you who don't live in Columbus, OH, there would be about 25k people ready to go headhunting for that official as soon as the game was over.

Red_Skin_Pride wrote:
It's the fourth quarter, with about 5 minutes left to go. The opposing team has just taken the lead, and this is likely the last time our example team will see the ball; basically make or break time. Player A fields a kickoff, breaks several tackles, a couple sweet moves and returns the kickoff 90 or 100 yards. As he is at about the 10 yard line going in (and way ahead of anyone else) he sticks his hand straight up in the air with his index finger up, basically doing the "#1" signal. The ref throws a flag for excessive celebration before crossing the goal line, thanks to our newly established rules, taking away the go-ahead score and placing the ball at the 10. The offense can't get the ball in the endzone, and loses a game that they scored enough points to win in, thanks to a flag.

The ball would be at the 25 yard line, 1st & ten.

^Thanks for the catch. I fixed it to be accurate.

ANYONE REMEMBER THIS PLAY!?!?!?!?! -

All Holmes did was take a light dive into the endzone to avoid the defenders but he was given a flag. If the year was 2011, that score would have been called back and OSU probably loses to Michigan. This new rule is a joke!

dat dude wrote:

Mr Pat wrote: The big one is if you taunt someone on the way to the endzone, you get a flag and it's now a spot foul and they take away the touchdown. Thoughts?

Dumb. A subjective "taunt" could change the entire complexity of a game during a situation where the outcome has nothing to do with said taunt (i.e. breakaway td and player is flagged for a taunting call when no defensive players are close). The rule was perfectly fine before.

Don't taunt, and just run into the endzone and there will be no problem.