The second day of the 2014-15 College Football Bowl season is in the books, and here’s a quick recap of what you need to know from today's game:
Miami Beach Bowl
Just the one game on Monday, another new addition to the line-up of Bowl games, though it will be one remembered for a long time – and remembered for all the wrong reasons. Yes, the Memphis Tigers stormed home to beat Brigham Young 55-48 in double overtime after leading 38-28 at three-quarter time.
It was the Tigers', more known for their basketball prowess, first ten-win season since 1938, after winning a combined total of ten games in four previous campaigns. No wonder Memphis signed their head coach Justin Fuentes to a new-five year contract after unprecedented success in 2014, including a share of the American Athletic Conference championship.
Alas, it will be the post-game events that marred the exciting game that will be most analysed and scrutinised in the coming days and weeks. During their celebration, Memphis players ran towards the BYU sideline. Now, that’s generally a no-no at the best of times, and, when tensions are high, not the best course of action a player could take.
Cougars players reacted angrily to what was seen as a slight, and suddenly there were players coming from everywhere – the benches were cleared – and victory celebrations descended into an ugly melee, with cheap shots on both sides. The footage, grim stuff, shows players trading punches, stomping on each other…and suddenly SportsCentre had it’s headlines.
No matter that Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch accounted for seven touchdowns (four passing and three rushing), tying a Bowl record set by Geno Smith for West Virginia in the 2012 Orange Bowl. No matter that the Cougars came storming back into a game most thought to be a foregone conclusion entering the final term. None of that matters. Not when there’s footage of guys taking cheap shots, swinging helmets, stomping and punching for sports websites and media to show again and again – as FOX Sports Australia has already done.
There seems to be a prevalence of fighting in football recently. We’ve seen it too often in the NFL and that it’s spilling over into the college game isn’t a good look at a time when football is a controversial game due to head-high contact and concussions. This sort of violence is just playing into the hands of those who say football has no place on the sporting landscape.
Those BYU and Memphis players involved turned from football players to two-bit thugs at the end of the game, and no matter how or why the melee started, those involved should be ashamed of themselves. There's no excuse for what happened on that field. None at all.
As far as incriminating footage goes, there’s plenty for schools and the NCAA to mull over during the off season, and you can safely bet that there’ll be at least a few players on both squads riding the pine during their 2015 season opener.
Two Bowl games tomorrow – the Boca Raton Bowl between Marshall and Northern Illinois and the Poinsettia Bowl that pits Navy against San Diego State – so hopefully we can actually have the main focus of a football game being football itself.
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