The camera angle of a player being told to get down.... Three "injured" players who seem to drop like a sack of rocks during key drives, thus, taking away momentum...and those players being three or four deep players. In my opinion, injuries are a serious business. They shouldn't be faked. We seem to have a record number of opposing players who suffer cramps and leg injuries against us...and Cal tops the list. Losers.
Yep, like I stated elsewhere, I have lost 100% of my respect for him. I used to really like him as a head coach.
BP - how can the refs enforce the rule of faked injury?? NCAA Rule: h. Feigning an injury for the purpose of gaining additional, undeserved time for one’s team. An injured player must be given full protection under the rules, but feigning injury is dishonest, unsportsmanlike and contrary to the spirit of the rules. Such tactics cannot be tolerated among sportsmen of integrity.
In this case, since a few of them were sop evidently blatant, I think the refs should still give the injury timeout, but then penalize Cal 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. The player is still protected and the message is also given to the Cal coaching staff it won't be tolerated.
I was at the game so I've no idea what they were showing on the boob tube of the "injured" guys. My seats were along the Cal side 12 rows up. Just a few minutes after #40 went down to an apparent leg injury, Cal had a big play go their way and he was doing the jump up in the air to chest bump a teammate thing. The 2nd time #96 was helped off the field (to another leg injury), he was smiling, chatting, fist bumping teammates and not needing assistance of any kind as soon as he reached the sidelines. I don't know how fans/alum of other proud PAC-10 schools can defend this sort of tactic. Not only did Cal fans at the game apparently support it, chiding Duck fans for booing their predictable 3rd down D Line leg cramps (a "haters" chant went up following one of #96's dramatic limp offs), but when Oregon offensive lineman Weems went down in the 2nd half following a Duck 1st down run they thought it appropriate to rain boos as he lay prone on the field... bear down indeed. A classless fanbase cheering on their blatant cheating... just pathetic. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was the Ducks faking injury, I'd be much more embarrassed/disgusted as an alum then I've ever been about individual player misconduct. I'd probably stop watching if Kelly pulled that sort of BS STOMP
Well, there's two ways the NCAA can go about dealing with this. They can either: A) Enforce a blanket rule that encompasses all injuries, forcing anyone who stops play for an injury to miss a certain number of downs. This could prove very costly for a team that chooses to fake injuries because it would keep their guys on the sideline, but this could be sidestepped if the team uses bench players to carry out the dive. B) Review the tape and enforce suspensions/fines for teams who blatantly cheat. Personally, I think it should be a combination of the two. A player should have to miss at least a series if they are injured, and if it is proven that they were cheating, they should be suspended for the next game. Proving the cheating would be more difficult, but in the case of Cal, it was so blatantly obvious that these players were being told to fake an injury, that I don't see any reason at all that they should not be punished. The whole thing is shameful.
no matter how steep this penalty of missed downs might be, teams could easily circumvent it by inserting a designated flopper. I'd be for giving the Pac-10 braintrust the ability to make judgment calls on suspending the starter of the position of whoever does the faking for the next game. So if a scrub is doing he BS the stud pays the price... it's not like the players are deciding to do this so you have to punish the team not the individual. This practice/strategy should be strongly discouraged. In your face cheating like this just undermines the reasons fans pay attention STOMP
Tedford coached that game like a guy one bad loss away from the unemployment line. After all he has done at Cal, his job can't be that insecure - can it?
The funny thing is, that's what makes the cheating even more obvious. The fact that a scrub who doesn't play, comes in and suddenly has a cramp, is simply laughable.
Of course he did. If he's willing to resort to cheap tactics to win, why wouldn't he throw his players under the bus to keep his job?
Tedford is a coward. And to blame the kicker is a cop out. The Ducks were in position to score and would have scored if they didn't go into victory formation.
Hope Cal has fun in their Holiday or Vegas Bowl. This might be the first year I don't root for them....
Fuck yes it is. Cal always disappoints. He gets good talent and gets them to play great- right until everyone starts noticing us- then the collapse comes and we finish just well enough to get a bowl game but ultimately nothing of real value. He gets a lot of really good backs and OL, some pretty solid receivers and usually a few NFL-destined defensive players to boot. But the team is never consistent. Oh yeah and he is in fact a douche bag. But I don't knock him at all for what he did against OU. This is college football- these head coaches are all pricks who will do anything to win and have zero morals IMO. And if you're the #1 team you better expect bush league tactics week in and week out. You've got a huge target on your back and opponents will do anything to knock you off. I hope OU doesn't think anything like you guys do because if they're whining and complaining about this crap they're not going to be #1 for much longer. Not saying its right but its reality and every team left on OU's schedule wants to be the one to knock them off and get the spotlight regardless of how they win it.
Heh. Good luck. Only way to do that is for Oregon themselves to do it to an SEC team in a big game. Otherwise no one gives a shit.