WE DON’T NEED MORE FLAG-PLANTING AT THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF
Allowing midfield riots throughout the sport is “dangerous” and “a bad look,” as Dabo Swinney said, and with a celebrated postseason ahead, brawlers are bad news this month at four campus stadiums
Don’t confuse the flag-planters and midfield brawlers. NIL has nothing to do with names, images and likenesses. NIL is about nuking, inundation and lunacy. When the Supreme Court ruled unanimously without a second or third thought about life, college athletes receiving compensation decided they could riot after games.
When paid, they can overwhelm stadiums, go viral on social media and prompt pepper spray to burn eyeballs. It wouldn’t take much for universities to crack down on the siege of opposing logos, issuing warnings that players will be severely punished. Yet no alarm bells went off before Saturday’s mass mania. A 12-team College Football Playoff begins on Dec. 20 and 21, with four games on campuses.
Must we patrol fields with landmines?
First we watched Michigan’s attack at Ohio State, in the rivalry of rivalries. Then we saw Arizona State plant a trident of the Sun Devils’ mascot on the Arizona turf, followed by Florida planting a flag at Florida State and North Carolina State trying the same at North Carolina. There was a shoving match between Alabama and Auburn and another between Houston and Brigham Young. What’s haywire is that Ryan Day, already about to lose his coaching gig at Ohio State, supported the outrage of players who lost to the Wolverines for the fourth straight time as 20.5-point underdogs. Never mind the police officer who was hospitalized. Never mind several people who suffered facial burns.
“There are some prideful guys on our team who weren’t going to sit back and just let that happen,” Day said.
The melee deserves to happen when a so-called leader of men — I loathe that phrase — doesn’t tell players to walk away from a standing flag. The pummeling team is wrong, sure, but hell rages when losers defend honor. This is where Day has misplaced his way and should not survive when his firing hour arrives. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney vilified the sport when his midfield in Death Valley was assailed by South Carolina, describing the scene as “dangerous” and “a bad look for college football.”
“I was dead in the middle of it and lucky to get out alive. It was scary, and we've got to make sure that doesn't happen anymore,” Swinney said. “People could have gotten hurt. I know you saw worse at some other places for the same thing. I promise you, whenever we win (at South Carolina) again, that's not something we're going to do. You win, you got bragging rights. You certainly want to celebrate that, as you should. But it could have really gotten out of hand, because there's a lot of people down there. Let's win the game, let's celebrate with our team, shake hands, and let's move on. That's what we need to do. There's a lot everybody across college football can learn from.”
Violent disturbances shouldn’t happen after rowdy games inside stadiums that seat massive six-figure crowds. Imagine what might take place in the stands? Michigan and Ohio State were fined $100,000 each by the Big Ten — not enough. Once a rampage made news in Columbus, too many players created their own headlines. Mike Norvell, Florida State’s coach, threw a Florida flag after a 31-11 loss while players pushed each other. He should have been out of the way. “It was just the way that we operate. And that's fine,” Norvell said. “You want to come and do that, that is absolutely a decision that you can have within a team.”
Consider it a shot at Florida. “Obviously, what happened there at the end of the game is not who we want to be as a program,” said coach Billy Napier, another man whose job isn’t a certainty. “It's embarrassing to me, and it's a distraction from a really well-played football game. I want to apologize on behalf of the entire organization just in terms of how we represented the university there. We shouldn't have done that. We won't do that moving forward. And there will be consequences for all involved.”
Why not tell his players before the game? During the week? Why not prepare a battle plan? Steve Sarkisian noticed his Texas players surrounding midfield after a victory at Texas A&M. He moved in quickly and told them to party elsewhere. “Good job by Sark. Off the logo, here we go. Off the logo, no need for that,” ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit said. “We can celebrate in other areas. That's how you handle that.”
In a postseason that continues to defy traditional logic — Boise State is expected to land a first-round bye — guess who is expected to host a first-round game? Ohio State, where fans might be ready for a second blitz. Georgia just hosted an eight-overtime game when fans, accustomed to two recent national title, went bonkers after a victory. Penn State and the famed White Out of clothing? Notre Dame could be peaceful, by comparison. Some of those sites could change this weekend. Imagine Arizona State somehow landing a game after thousands of students stormed the field two weeks ago, then had to return to seats. Bring your tridents, as Brick Tamland did when he killed a guy in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”
Oregon is No. 1 with an undefeated season in its first Big Ten tour, which is shocking as the Southeastern Conference takes bloody lumps. Texas remains No. 2. They deserve bye weeks and would be two bowl victories from a Jan. 20 championship game.
Until then, call the National Guard.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.