Vanderbilt Penalized for Illegal Uniforms
 

This seems to be a good answer to my question as to why they shouldn't just have to forfeit. If NCAA's rules are so complicated and hard to get a clear answer in advance on re what's allowed on the uniform, forfeiting a game would be ridiculous. Then again, the rules are ridiculous themselves.

Nobody is sending 30,000+ people home because of illegal uniforms.

Let the league sanction the offending schools and keep the game day officials out of it.

It's not the rules that are ridiculous, it's the fools who insist on trying to be really clever in doing something "special" to get around simple, basic, clear requirements. Rather than try and out-guess what some idiot thinks would be funny, and create a list of specific no-nos to put on uniforms, the rules made it really clear and simple. NO slogans, which covers, or should have, all the inventive ideas of the marketing department.

forfeit would be excessive, a good spanking or sending some marketing genious to bed without supper might do the trick.

That's what my original thought had been: Play the game as normal, but then retroactively forfeit it if someone reports it to the league. Same as if they'd used ringers.

Apparently it's not that simple, or the article wouldn't've mentioned service academies as an exception. Also, why should field officials even think about some detail like that that has no effect on the play of the game?

They'd have been down with "HE HATE ME" on the jerseys.
:rolleyes:
Seriously, this uniform gimmick has gone too far. If I see Penn State with some goofy unis or helmets I'll know the apocalypse has arrived.

Field officials don't create rules. Military Academies are, in fact, "special" and there was a time that those who understood they were "special" didn't need to ptomote their being special, it was simply understood, so there was really no need to claim an exception.

Accepting rational standards doesn't detract from being truly recognized as "special", as that designation supercedes standards.

A question from a basketball official.
 

I first read about this game online the morning after the game (I am sure that it was the Yahoo Sports article referenced in the OP).

As a football fan whose philosophy comes from that great college football coach, Woody Hayes: "Three things can happen when one passes the ball and two of them are bad." LOL! I found the explanation in the article lacking and found the uniform jersey shown in the articles picture quite benign.

I guess what I am asking is a somewhat technical yet geared toward the football fan explanation of the rule and how it was supposed to be applied and why the officials excepted an copy of an email sent to the coaches (and not to the officials I presume) to convince them to change their ruling?

MTD, Sr.

COACH: "Here's a copy of what your boss sent me before the game. He said our unis were OK."

REFEREE: "Coach, you're absolutely right. I don't know why he didn't communicate that to us, but we're rescinding the penalty."

I am sure the baseball umpires on this forum will tell you that a baseball coach risks getting tossed when he brings a rules book onto the field. I officiate basketball (rules interpreter) and umpire baseball and fast pitch softball, and I would not except an email to a coach from my assigner if I and my partners had not received it also. It just seems sketchy to me.

MTD, Sr.

If a coach produced an email from Jerry Snodgrass (OHSAA Assistant Commissioner for basketball, for you non-Buckeyes), I doubt you would ignore it. You accept it and write the report after the game. If it's forged, that's their problem.

This seems more like presenting a list of illegal/legal bats. That IS acceptable is it not?

I can tell you here (Colorado), there'd be no such email from anyone at CHSAA to the coaches/ADs. Not for uniform exceptions.

That said, the NCAA is different and I'd be hesitant to extropolate anything from that.