The rule about contacting an official specifically includes disqualification. If you are going to call this you have to disqualify unless you are going to stretch some other rule that doesn't apply.

If you're in this business to garner approval from spectators and/or commentators, you might seriously consider a career change, because this is not the place to expect approval. Why would any official care what Danny Kanell thinks about the role and responsibilities of officials?

He's entitled to his opinion, but so what.

I hardly do this for a living. But wouldn't it be nice to actually make a living officiating football! I don't get paid enough to deal with most of the crap. It's my love of football that makes me remain an official.

Because idiotic comments by him and other commentators leave impressions on players and coaches. How many times have any of us heard "He was outside the pocket!" or other such crap? Coaches and players watch football on Saturday and Sunday and listen to these folk.

And this goes beyond just commentary on officials' roles and responsibilities. Kanell has gone beyond just football commentary and entered into social and political commentary. To suggest that Tebow would be lauded while Winston is excoriated speaks about more than just roles and responsibilities. It speaks to what some think is unfair treatment because of Winston's race, or Tebow's faith, or other such ridiculous notions.

And if there was a standard, and that standard was applied, we'd never have this discussion, because all players would be treated the same by all officials.

Words mean things. Words have real effects. And idiotic commentary such as Kanell's doesn't add anything to the discussion. As APG pointed out, talk about the merits of a flag or ejection, don't waste time on social and political commentary.

I see what you're saying: It's like the player's going, here, I'll help you get out of the way, rather than the player's getting in the official's way. Maybe there's no way to make 3-4-2 fit. But did 9-2-4 contemplate such a situation? It's written so black & white, with no nuances, that it makes me wonder how an official could discretionarily ignore the forceful & deliberate contact in such a situation.

You seem to recognize M. Knells comments as "idiotic", so why are you paying any attention to them or letting them bother you?

Treating "all players alike", doesn't require treating all situations exactly alike, because it's extremely rate that any two situations in a football game are EVER EXACTLY alike. The "standard" we all strive for is measured by our judgment, as long as we're consistent in applying that judgment to whatever situation we're dealing with, rather than trying to find "one size that fits all".

As long as we're accurate, what difference does it make that others are inaccurate (dopey comments like, "he was outside the pocket). Of course such comments give us an opportunity to educate someone, but if they choose to remain ignorant, THAT'S ON THEM.

Ignorance can be corrected by providing accurate information. Those who choose to ignore accurate information are STUPID, and that's a condition that can last forever and likely beyond our ability to correct.

"Intentionally contacting an official is either always a foul or it isn't", as determined by the judgment of the game official observing or enduring the contact.

Because other people pay attention to them. The very same people that I work with on Monday, Tues, Thu, and Friday nights.

Correct. But you note that Kanell states that even in the same situation, Tebow would be celebrated ("If this happened to Tim Tebow back in heyday, we would be talking about how great of a competitor he is...."). So the only difference between Winston and Tebow in Kanell's analysis is the player.

Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't coaches coach to the rules? If they are watching football on Saturday and Sunday to learn the rules, that's one thing. If they are listening to commentators on stupid analyses like "Tebow would have been celebrated" that is another. One just gets the rules wrong. The other gets our motivations and intentions wrong.

Then shouldn't we speak out against those to make inaccurate, dopey comments, like Kanell's?

That wasn't my point. I'm not arguing against application to circumstances. Of course circumstances change the application (I can point you to an excellent talk by Peter Kreeft on ethics). My frustration with Kanell is that he's gone past arguing about the application of the rule with regard to circumstances, instead arguing about the individuals involved, as if somehow that actually matters.

Well there are officials who have made the very comment about which player that would be involved. I think Kanell is right in that assessment how the media covered this. But I heard on another site people talking about Winston and his off-field issues in this situation. If he is to be ejected, that should never be mentioned. Since the official involved was not put off by the action, something tells me that there was not a direct confrontation. Something tells me the official understood a confusion or understood what the player was trying to do and used his judgment.

So we cannot get on Kanell when we have had officials say the very same thing.

Peace

Good point. My reading was that he was critical of officials treating players differently. But after reading it again, I think I misread it. It does seem Kanell is critical of the media, fans and pundits, not the officials.

Well, this does put a twist on things. If doing a game and the crew from the previous week warns you about a player that was problematic, I think we are more likely to scrutinize that player. But that is limited to on-field behavior. I agree that off-field behavior should not be a factor.

I hadn't commented on it yet, but that is the impression I got from watching the video. I do not think his contact was malicious. I do think it was intentional. But there is a difference between intentionally contacting an official in a benign manner (shaking hands, helping up, pat on the shoulder, etc) and in a malicious manner (shoving, running into, etc). The discussion on here and elsewhere was judging which category this particular contact falls. The officials on the field didn't appear to find it malicious. Insofar as the discussion is focused on that, I don't have a problem. But those discussing the motivations of the officials is problematic.

My original comment about "Intentionally contacting an official is either always a foul or it isn't" should be edited. Perhaps "Maliciously contacting an official is either always a foul or it isn't." Malicious acts are always intentional, and not all intentional acts are malicious. Now, I don't know how the NCAA rule is phrased. But if it is the former, that may be a reason why this discussion is going on.

Well, since I think I misunderstood Kanell's point, I think that Kanell and the officals are saying different things.

The contact in my opinion was Winston trying to get under center because he wanted to be uptempo for the next play. The substitution was completed and he was trying to get the next play off. I do not think it was intentional as people are tryign to suggest. He was trying to intentionally snap the ball for sure, quickly. And if you look at the time the ball was snapped, the CJ was not yet set into his position. I think that was party how the conversation took place between Winston and the CJ. And that is why I feel there was no penalty or even a concern. All Kanell was only saying that the official did not react in a way that he felt a penalty should be called and that it was about how the media percieved Winston as compared to a player like Tebow. Kanell just agreed that there should not have been a penalty and that is also what the ACC suggested as well.

Peace

It's phrased in a way that malice doesn't enter into, just whether it was forceful & intentional.

I'm trying to look at it in a way the official directly affected, or other officials looking on, would not have been said to ignore the letter of the law. Perhaps it could be said that since it's in a section labeled "unsportsmanlike acts", a particular action by a player that fit the specifics of an article within it could simply be ruled not to have been "unsportsmanlike". In other words, by reading into each provision affecting actions in that section a qualifier, "in a manner which is unsportsmanlike", because that's how the section is headed.

Similarly, helping an official off the ground by pulling him would be forceful & intentional, but not unsportsmanlike...I hope. ("Hey, you dissing me by saying I need help to get off the ground? You're outta here!")

I could think of other situations where there'd be a similar conflict between the wording of this provision and its probable purpose. Just any live ball and an official is in your way as a player. You could go around him, but say that tactically it's to your advantage to try to run him over. You didn't go out of your way to make contact, but you could've avoided it. Or say you're a non-player subject to the rules, and an official has been knocked off the sideline by such a contact, and you hit him to deflect him from hitting some hard object near the field.

It was as "intentional" as many other actions in the game where the rules use that word.

There was a time I deliberately shoved a cop. My father had called him over to us in a dispute on the street over what some disrespectful youth had just done to him in an argument. The policeman asked me what the person in question had done. I couldn't resist what might've been a once-a-lifetime opp'ty. I'm sure the cop expected just a description, but instead I demonstrated by shoving him on the shoulders with enough force that he, being slight of build, staggered backwards. My father later couldn't believe I'd done that on purpose.

I'm sure that calculated type of action, i.e. contriving as I did to push an authority figure around in the guise of other action, was not what the player in the game undertook, but it was intentional nonetheless.