Mitchell Blog: Party Foul!

"Excessive Celebration" - the term itself suggests contradiction. CFN's Russ Mitchell examines the impact this penalty is having on our sport, and specifically, the LSU v. UGA game

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If we’re not careful, the great sport of college football will soon have all the passion of two week old lettuce.

If you missed the thrilling, seesaw fourth quarter of LSU’s 20-13 win at Georgia, shame on you. But in that shame, you missed two very questionable “Excessive Celebration” penalties following the final two scores; the outrage resulting from which you’ll likely be reading about for much of the next week.

As you navigate through this noise, don’t let the messenger cloud the message – and there are two. First, the penalty itself, and its impact on our sport. Second, the relative impact on this specific game’s outcome; and since controversy sells, the latter is bound to be a hot topic.

PARTY FOUL

Forget the game and its outcome for a moment – let’s just review the penalties themselves. With 1:09 left, down by five and driving deep in LSU territory, Georgia’s Joe Cox looked out on solid coverage of all of his receivers. Not surprisingly, he went Green (A.J.), lofting a tight spiral into the end zone toward his talented sophomore wideout. Green simply plucked the ball out of the air over LSU’s CB Chris Hawkins, who had blanket coverage.

Then the inexplicable happened. While celebrating with his team, and appearing to make no untoward gesture/taunt, Green was flagged for Excessive Celebration – a 15 yard penalty to be enforced on the ensuing kickoff.

In the days to come, perhaps we will learn of some language and/or gesture made outside the view of the crowd/television audience. But to the naked eye, and after 500 replays, it certainly appeared that Green was respectfully celebrating a come-from-behind 'victory' in the final moments of a terrific battle.

A few ticks later, LSU’s Charles Scott rumbled 33 yards over two Georgia tacklers for the game’s winning points. Scott celebrated by kissing his hands and pointing toward the heavens.

BAM! Excessive Celebration.

Are you kidding us?!

We don’t have a hotline to the Almighty, but we’re guessing he was no less happy about either infraction than the vast majority of college football fans.

These are the very moments that make college football our nation’s most passionate sport. This passion simply isn’t present in professional sports – not to the same depth. After all, they are by their very definition professionals, playing for pay, for a living… Not love.

Not love of school, or state. Or youth. Not to avenge 100 year old rivalries. Not for the band, the recruits, the alumni, nor roster sizes that provide for double the teammates. Football of the college variety may lack the expertise of the pros, but it trumps The League on passion.

We don’t blame the officials, we blame the rule, which provides no room for interpretation. And the penalty being enforced on the kickoff actually makes it less impactful than last year, when it was applied to the extra point (think Washington v. BYU). Had this happened last season, UGA would have been denied the chance to go for two. And had LSU won on a last second field goal...

But back to the moments themselves, for they are the very essence of what we crave: the pageantry, the battle, the star, a screaming stadium, the release of stored tension, and the rush of ecstatic teammates. These jubilant moments are ruined by a terrible rule.

But it goes deeper than that, for ruining these moments damages our sport. Don’t think so? We reckon there will be as many discussions/column inches written about these penalties as there will be about the game’s fantastic performances. If not more. Which isn’t good for our sport.

Let's be clear - there IS such a beast as excessive celebration. All of us know that one guy who takes the party a little too far. If you don't, you're the guy.

The issue here is not celebration, it's taunting, for which there should be little tolerance - particularly in its excess. But excessive celebration is something to be embraced, not punished.

THE GAME

As for the impact on the game itself, don’t buy the hype. At best, the Green penalty gave the Tigers a 15 yard measure of hope. However, LSU had just driven 88 yards for a touchdown on its previous possession. With 1:09 remaining, two timeouts, and needing only a FG to win, the Bayou Bengals were by no means sunk.

Green’s penalty didn’t give LSU Kick Returner Trindon Holliday “more room to work”, as suggested by ESPN’s Rece Davis (was he running backwards?) – anymore than it did Georgia’s Brandon Boykin after Scott’s penalty. Such hyperbole belittles the effort/performance of Holliday, who returned the Georgia kickoff 44 yards to the Dawgs 38. Nor did Green’s penalty cause the Georgia infraction on the kickoff itself, which tacked another five yards onto the return.

Finally, Green’s penalty played no role in Scott bowling over not one but two Georgia linebackers on his way to the game winning TD, at a moment when everyone in Sanford stadium was expecting a running play.

BOTTOM LINE

While the penalties themselves had marginal impact on the game’s outcome, that in no way lessens the damage this rule is causing our sport.

There is no room for excessive taunting or unsportsmanlike behavior in any sport. However, there must be some level of discretion afforded officials. This flawed rule has already been amended once. We would be shocked if during the offseason it is not amended again to provide for that discretion - if it's not chucked entirely.

If it's kept in some form, might we also suggest the term Excessive Celebration be replaced with Excessive Taunting, or just Taunting - since that is our real aim. Though we note we already have a penalty on the books that's worked fine for years, provides for greater discretion, and is easily applied to taunting: Unsportsmanlike Conduct.