Jameis Winston

[Suudy]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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.

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.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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.

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.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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.

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.

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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

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

[JRutledge]

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

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

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.

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.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Suudy

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.

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.