I hate the excessive celebration rule...(but I do love the controversy)!
It happens only a few times each college football season...I'm sitting there enjoying / watching the game when suddenly a spectacular play is made and then: I lose control and in a moment of passion I'm on my feet, cheering at the top of my lungs, arms raised, feeling elated. It's called passion. And if you have it, really have it...then be player, coach, fan, friend or foe...you celebrate those moments. It's a reflex and it's uncontrollable and it's what I did when BYU blocked the last second PAT to tie the game.
That is also what Jake Locker did moments before. Good for him. He cares about the game, his team, and giving his all. Jake was doing what every coach, tells every player, every Saturday: "Show some passion out there." You can't have one without the other. Don't fault Jake...fault the system.
I've heard it multiple times since Saturday, and you probably have, too: "Good call. Stupid rule." Give the officials a cookie for sticking to the rule book, a dunce cap for not doing what's right.
I do NOT agree with Bronco's comments: "We do have rules for a reason....They are to teach principles of class and integrity. Sometimes young men in the heat of the moment get over-exuberant and the rules are in place to try to keep the game intact and hold on to what is most important in the game and that's the team element. Again, it's unfortunate that a call is being the focus rather than two teams playing their heart out and going down to the last play that did decide the game."
I agree that the call is getting more attention than the teams and shouldn't, but to allude that the the excessive celebration rule maintains the all important team element is asinine. The game was never not intact.
I do agree with the following comment from Jim Caple of ESPN, a UW alum: "It was one of the absolute worst calls I've ever seen in football. The only thing that tempers it somewhat is that BYU was the better team in this game and that Washington coach Ty Willingham planned to go for the tie rather than go for two and the upset win; it was pretty clear that there was no way the Huskies would have been able to stop BYU's offense in overtime. Unless, of course, BYU did something heinous and unsportsmanlike, such as showing up the Huskies after scoring a touchdown, such as hugging one another and shouting and running off the field all superiorlike. I mean, that sort of behavior might fly in the Mountain West Conference, but by God, not in the Pac-10.
Placing a control on celebrations is placing limits on passion...that's wrong. Excessiveness resulting in taunting or injury or insult should be penalized (think UGA vs UF October 2007) and that is what the rule is there to control...not passion for the game.
PS: Saturday night highlights showed UU do the same thing after a touchdown with no penalty.
