...but it sure wasn't something that I was happy to see.
It was a simple call, really. Jacquizz Rodgers, whose older brother is on the team and is more strongly protected by teammates than the POTUS, got hit after the whistle and out of bounds by Terell Carr. Naturally, the Beaver sideline was up in arms about the incident and swarmed to Carr, who was pulled away by teammates.
Quizz was restrained by his own teammates, Carr was out of the picture, the flag for unnecessary roughness was thrown and all seemed to be OK. Until Tank English showed up.
What happens next is a bit muddled because of the obvious limitation: I wasn't in Corvallis, I didn't see the incident first hand and was limited to the camera angles and replays that FSN decided to run with.
But what I saw was a hot headed defensive lineman willingly go onto the opposing sideline. Maybe he was acting as a peacemaker. Maybe he wasn't. I'll never know what his mindset was. What I DO know is that all would have been peaceful had an Oregon State assistant coach not stepped in.
The replays show that there was a clear shoving match between English and the unidentified coach, and the contact from the coach to Tank clearly had more "oomph" behind it. Simply put, it really looked like the members of the Beavers staff lost his cool and decided to show it physically.
That coach/staff member needs to be suspended immediately. The role of the adult in that situation, whether it be football or anything else, is to be the level-headed peacemaker. What that coach did was a clear escalation of a situation that referees and other coaches were trying to resolve and he decided to take his frustration into his own hands and go after an opposing player. It obviously was no Woody Hayes punching Charlie Bauman, but it was a completely unacceptable act by a non-player.
Before it was over, though, ASU had its own shameful moment. All of a sudden, Steve Physioc comes out and says "There must be 20 ASU players off the sideline near midfield...Dennis Erickson is PAST midfield!"
Great.
As soon as he said that, I started counting ASU players. All of a sudden, I saw 13 maroon and gold bodies. Two too many. Ryan McFoy made it all the way across without his helmet (a sure sign that he...uh...WASN'T on the field on the previous defensive play) and so did PFN's favorite goat, Nate Kimbrough.
The ONLY person that should have been off the bench for Arizona State was Erickson. In those tense situations, I think it's the responsibility of the coach to play peacemaker. Not other players, especially those who are on the bench.
I'm not laying blame on anyone here; this, frankly, was a very minor situation. No one was ejected and there was no retribution on either side. Both teams got personal foul penalties and the rest of the 4th quarter progressed without incident.
However, it's worth mentioning here, because if it's frustration that's starting to boil over for 2-6 Sun Devils, someone needs to step in and rein it in.
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2 comments:
I was at the game, didn't see the OSU asst. coach you mentioned, but if you're wondering about the players that left the ASU bench, it were 15-20 of them that made it clear across the hash marks on the OSU side of the field and mix in a little with OSU players. To their credit, I didn't see any of them really get involved heavy duty, but you're right that is unacceptable to have guys leave their bench and go all the way across the field. The only thing that incident really accomplished was finally firing up Oregon State who, to that point, had been playing with inconsistent passion.
I'm glad you noticed the asst coach as well. I was livid at that, and completely agree that he should be suspended. This isn't a homer comment either, I'd strongly argue for ASU coaches involved in a similar situation to be suspended as well, and I'd go so far as to call Lisa Love and complain.
Leaving the bench for something like that is bad bad bad, too, although if you see the other team's coaches roughing up your teammates, I could better understand why someone would do that.
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