It’s time for my weekly take on a few topics from the week in college football. It’s time for Four Downs.

 

1) Running Down a Bunch of Rebels

If, before kickoff, I told you that your team would hold the ball for about thirty minutes and turn the ball over four times on fumbles, it would be safe to assume that your team lost the football game.

If I then told you that your team didn’t punt the ball once and went 7-for-7 on third down conversions, you might think that I was talking about two totally different games.

Nope. These events transpired in the same game last Saturday, as the University of Nevada destroyed their arch-rivals, UNLV, 63-28 in Reno.

The Wolf Pack, who had been struggling most of the season, had 773 yards of total offense—559 of those yards coming on the ground!

The Wolf Pack had three players rush for 170 yards or more.

Oh, and did I mention that the game was tied 28-28 with about five minutes to go in the third quarter?

An abysmal performance by UNLV now has their head coach on the hot seat.

 

2) Celebrate Good Times—Until the Whistle Blows

Of course, Coach Mike Sanford’s seat is relatively cool compared to the heat that the crew from last week’s LSU-Georgia game must be feeling right now.

While everyone around the country has had a chance to review and super slo-mo the footage of Georgia wide receiver AJ Green’s post-game celebration that was apparently too hot for the officiating crew, once again, the spotlight falls onto the ridiculous hyper-enforcement of a rule that strips the joy out of the college game.

I understand the intent behind the rule; the committee that put the rule in place wanted to cut down on the “look at me” aspect of celebration. They didn’t want student athletes to call attention to themselves in any unseemly manner. It was viewed as a sportsmanship issue.

I’ve got that loud and clear.

But we know by now that that isn’t the case.

(I also want to make this clear mid-rant: there is no actual specific rule called illegal celebration. It more generally falls under the unsportsmanlike conduct rule. End of sidebar.)

If the celebration is choreographed; if the players all pull out white sequined gloves and do simultaneous moonwalks, then by all means throw the yellow flag.

If the player scores and points at the opposing player after scoring and/or mouths off at him, throw the flag.

But penalizing the player because you thought he pointed at the crowd?

How is that unsportsmanlike?

How is that taunting?

Especially when it’s his own crowd?

I am just completely and utterly baffled by the misapplication of this rule, and demand that the rules committee review and clarify the parameters under which an official should penalize a team for an excessive celebration.

(By the way, the penalty in and of itself did not cost Georgia the game; they still had opportunities to stop LSU on the final drive and failed to do so. However, the penalty still did have an impact on the game—mentally, if nothing else.)

3) A Cinderella Story—Busted!

Cinderella had it rough.

I’m not simply talking about the whole wicked stepmother and stepsisters thing, either. Granted, they did make her life a living hell, but she was pure of heart and was ultimately rewarded with an opportunity to head to the ball.

At the ball, she met Prince Charming, but a curfew forced her to leave before her date with destiny was supposed to end.

Yes, it did all work out for old Cindy in the end, because even though her stepmother broke one of the glass slippers, she managed to keep the other one just in case.

But if the (Disney) version of the story teaches us nothing else, it is this:

Glass slippers are fragile things. They break easily.

Don’t believe me? Ask the University of Houston right now.

After an amazing two-game stretch where they were able to knock off Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, the Cougars traveled across the state and allowed UTEP to score 58 points on them in a 58-41 loss.

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