Storming The Field May Be A Thing of the Past
It’s a college football tradition.
Upset the big bad favorite at home and fans get celebrate “rushing the field”.
We’ve all seen it and it looks like fun.
Last season Tennessee Volunteers fan stormed the field following their thrilling 52-49 overtime win over Alabama. They even proceeded to tear down a goal post and throw it in the Tennessee River. As did LSU fans after beating the same Crimson Tide.
Doesn’t matter the school was fined 100K following the incident. Never mind how much a new goal post cost. That’s peanuts compared to the $49.9 million each SEC school gets from the SEC Network.
Apparently, the small fines the SEC is dolling out isn’t much of a disincentive to fans so SEC is going to step up their game.
Pat Forde from SI writes
A conference working group on event safety was appointed by commissioner Greg Sankey last November—less than three weeks after Tennessee fans tore down the goalposts following a victory over Alabama and just a day before LSU fans flooded the Tiger Stadium field to revel in an upset of the Crimson Tide. The working group, headed by Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, Georgia AD Josh Brooks and Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart, has been gathering input and weighing options for several months.
The premise of losing a future SEC home game is just one of the policy changes that has been discussed by the working group. An even more drastic one—forfeiture of the game in which the field storm occurred—is unlikely to gain much traction. But there is general agreement that something more needs to be done beyond hitting schools in their fat wallets.
Feels like a lot. Taking away a future home game? Why not a significantly larger fine or revoke tickets from the people rushing the field. But as our parents used to tell us, ‘it only takes one to ruin a good time’.