December 31, 2010

Excessive Celebration Flag Decides Bowl Game: Syracuse won a wild Pinstripe Bowl over Kansas State Thursday night 36-34, helped by a 15-yard celebration penalty that forced Kansas State to try a 17-yard two-point conversion that was unsuccessful. Adrian Hilburn scored on a 30-yard touchdown pass and saluted the crowd, drawing flags from both the head linesman and back judge.

posted by rcade to football at 12:20 PM - 9 comments

Pretty damned weak.

posted by wfrazerjr at 12:06 PM on December 31, 2010

Weak!

posted by lil_brown_bat at 12:16 PM on December 31, 2010

Seems ridiculous to me too. Tennessee players were doing an I'm-crazy gesture after several big plays that didn't draw a flag in the Music City Bowl. How can anybody know what the standard is?

posted by rcade at 12:16 PM on December 31, 2010

Maybe they should just put a time limit on celebrations and mark the excessive line that way. You've got 5 seconds from the time the ref puts his arms up - do what you gotta do. After 5 seconds, penalty.

You can do a pretty entertaining dance in 5 seconds.

posted by fabulon7 at 12:30 PM on December 31, 2010

I like fabulon's idea. Refs inserting themselves into the game in arbitrary ways that are entirely subjective? What is this, figure skating?

posted by hincandenza at 12:39 PM on December 31, 2010

fabulon has a good idea. Or just eliminate the celebration flag altogether in the last minute of a college game and let the kid briefly celebrate. Having a celebration flag determine the outcome of that game is ridiculous.

posted by roberts at 12:49 PM on December 31, 2010

Why wait until the last minute of a game? Eliminate the penalty altogether. If a team is celebrating, let them go, but if they delay the subsequent snap or kick, then lay a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct on them. If the celebration becomes a trash-talking session, lay the unsportsmanlike penalty there too. I'm sure the officials have ears, and can tell the difference between "wow, great play" and "wow, you guys suck".

posted by Howard_T at 02:36 PM on December 31, 2010

Syracuse's #1 took a shot at at Hilburn in the end zone before he saluted, which could've been an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, too.

Was Stanford's #5 flagged for celebrating after this touchdown? He gestured towards the crowd after scoring, too.

posted by kirkaracha at 07:39 PM on December 31, 2010

Complete bullshit to have a bowl game decided this way.

posted by dviking at 07:46 PM on December 31, 2010

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