Ah, no.

Peterson was a running back (not a QB) and he dove into the EZ with players hanging on him in the process. He did not do a flip or outrun a lot of players and taunt them. Actually Peterson's effort was normal and more of a freak accident. You cannot even equate the two incidents. Both were great plays, but Peterson was surrounded by defenders and lunged into the EZ. Bush beat the entire Bears Defense and had enough speed to run completely away and then had time to flip into the EZ.

Peace

Jeez, you're absolutely right. I would've sworn that he was the early season QB. But after quick fact-checking on espn.com, you're completely correct.

But I also would've sworn that his dive wasn't really necessary. I remember it being discussed on sports talk. I though there were players around, but nobody making a play on him. Oh well, I've been wrong before.

That is easy for anyone to say and you were not on the field having big players running to hit them. If I remember correctly Peterson just broke tackles (which was a great play) and made a last ditch effort to get in the end zone. I agree that he probably did not have to do it to get in the end zone, but I think he felt he needed to get into the end zone if players were hanging off of him. At least that is what I remember. This did happen back in October if I am not mistaken. ;)

Peace

Peterson gets sort of tripped up by a tackler and he sort of flipped around. So it could have looked like something that it wasn't. It's the last play in this video.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=jRysD-UHvBY

REPLY: Thanks sj...that's the way I remembered it. Anyone who would call that USC should probably turn in his whistle (only kidding ;) ). But that was clearly not a "hey-look-at-me-scoring-a-TD" dive into the end zone.

Right, it's important to remember that an unnecessary dive into the end zone isn't a foul - it's only a foul if it's obviously show-boating. I've had a runner dive into the end zone and I'm was sure he didn't need to in order to score, but there were defenders making a grab for him. From my view, the dive was not needed but he may have felt differently.

If you are lucky enough to be in front of the runner you can often tell a lot by their eyes. My back judge used to flag guys for leaping into the end zone and there was a defender close behind (3-5 yards). I could have interpreted he leapt for the purpose of eluding those tacklers, but he stated he could tell by the look on his face his true intent was hot dogging. The player argued otherwise but you would expect that.

eyes or no eyes it's not a foul if there's a defender within 3 yards of the runner.

What do you think of this:

Easy to flag a somersault.
Hard to flag an outright dive.

Along the lines of this topic it seemed to me that during the bowl games that excessive celebration and other UC acts were pretty prevalent. It just seemed like the 15 yards wasn't going to matter all that much. I was wondering if anybody else felt the same way. It would be interesting to see the statistics on the number of flags thrown for celebration compared to other years to see if the flags and penalties are really cutting the number of incidences down.