I have a question on a penalty/and my thoughts on the penalties

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MNfootballfan

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First, I don't think anyone disagrees with me. We are an undisciplined team when it comes to penalties. No excuse for jumping offsides, blocks in the back, etc. There are some penalties I will excuse. There were a couple of personal fouls last night that I considered hustle penalties. The guys were trying to make plays and trying to bring down a guy and it got out of bounds. Stoudemire didn't do anything wrong in my opinion, but whats the point of putting your hands up and drawing attention to yourself? Celebrate with a teammate and you can do whatever you want. The late hit on the kickoff was crazy. Someone with a better view might prove me wrong, but I am convinced from where I was sitting (section 105) we had the returner wrapped up in bounds and brought him down out of bounds. It wasn't a dirty or malitious hit, just football. Then the roughing the QB...

I am extremely confused by this. He threw the ball towards the bench, we had the QB wrapped up for a sack when he threw the ball. If everytime the QB is about to get sacked and just tosses the ball in the air is it a roughing the QB? When is it a QB hurry and when is it roughing? Why did the flag come out after the ball hit the ground?

Now, the way the fans and players responded to the two calls was amazing. I honestly thing those two calls win the game for the gophers. The intensity level in the entire stadium skyrocketed. It is kind of nice watching a Gopher game and not wondering, "how are we going to lose this?" After the two penalties and then the stop I had a confident feeling this was the Gopher's night.
 

It was electric. Man after those calls whenever we tackled a player it was funny to see alot, i mean alot of fans throw up an imaginary flag.
 

MNfootballfan said:
First, I don't think anyone disagrees with me. We are an undisciplined team when it comes to penalties. No excuse for jumping offsides, blocks in the back, etc. There are some penalties I will excuse. There were a couple of personal fouls last night that I considered hustle penalties. The guys were trying to make plays and trying to bring down a guy and it got out of bounds. Stoudemire didn't do anything wrong in my opinion, but whats the point of putting your hands up and drawing attention to yourself? Celebrate with a teammate and you can do whatever you want. The late hit on the kickoff was crazy. Someone with a better view might prove me wrong, but I am convinced from where I was sitting (section 105) we had the returner wrapped up in bounds and brought him down out of bounds. It wasn't a dirty or malitious hit, just football. Then the roughing the QB...

I am extremely confused by this. He threw the ball towards the bench, we had the QB wrapped up for a sack when he threw the ball. If everytime the QB is about to get sacked and just tosses the ball in the air is it a roughing the QB? When is it a QB hurry and when is it roughing? Why did the flag come out after the ball hit the ground?

Now, the way the fans and players responded to the two calls was amazing. I honestly thing those two calls win the game for the gophers. The intensity level in the entire stadium skyrocketed. It is kind of nice watching a Gopher game and not wondering, "how are we going to lose this?" After the two penalties and then the stop I had a confident feeling this was the Gopher's night.
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The roughing call was b/c another player (Simoni I think) hit him in the face with his arm. Wasn't too rough at all (looked like a glancing blow) but they called it b/c it was a blow to the QB's head.
 

I've been thinking about what Brew needs to do to stop the penalties and I don't think it's going to be easy. The problem is that they are coming from every where. The only easy ones to get rid of are the celebration and taunting ones. Other than that they all are different situations that require their own solutions. No way to blanket fix this. A part of it was these refs seem to be a little quick with the flag, seemed when they were questionable they'd throw the flag. Outside of one imaginary offsides you can see why the refs made the call, but in almost every case they could have just as easily put the thing back in their pockets.

As was pointed out on another thread one of our offsides was a late snap. And that's rare. So no real need to address that. The other was called on Wills and those who looked didn't see him move, so unless they got the number wrong and someone else moved it was imaginary, which happens now and then. Refs flinch too!

All and all, there's not going to be an easy way to fix it, as it a little here and there. It all adds up, but tough to coach it out as there is no point of emphasis to focus on.
 

The penalty issues are a direct reflection on the head coach. It's undisciplined football and it's embarrassing. Penalties have a huge affect on the outcome of the game. We had 17 last night! That's a Big Ten record. Something has to be done or the issue is going to become a huge problem for Brewster as he fights to remain the head coach of the Gophers. If we had lost that game last night, people would be calling for his head, and the penalties would be the first thing they'd mention, other than his W-L record. He needs to demand more of his players.
 


Right but until there is a problem it can't be coached out. You can't emphasize the line not to cross until it is crossed. Just the way it goes. We can judge Brew on how well he can address it now that it's appeared. And from seeing this in the past it's not a one week fix, it's a year to year situation. So we'll just have to see how he does.

This is also what you will see with younger kids and first year kids playing, not knowing the boundaries well, game speed issues etc.
 

If you think this stuff just magically goes away, you're wrong. It's coaching. It's setting expectations and holding players to them. I know he can't fix every penalty, but 17? That's an epidemic that needs a cure.
 

I've been trying to find a home for this post. Didn't want to start another penalty/officiating thread so I'll put it here.

Seventeen penalties are a lot. no question about it. But if you think it's easy to get rid of them I don't think it is. Let's look at them.

I can't remember all 17 so add on if you can.

Stoudemire taunting...raising is arms in the air accepting the cheers, not facing any sparty player. He actually moved away from the finishing spot of the play to be sure he was clear.

QB roughing...lawrence head smash. A result of leaping to attempt to deflect the pass and continuation hit the QB in the head. Auto call. How do you coach that out? What do you say? Only use gator arms when trying to deflect a qb pass??

Late hit...initiated contact in bounds. shouldn't have been called but was because he didn't release the player as they tumbled. This can be coached out, but clearly an iffy call. He didnt' throw the player down, didn't add to the tackle out of bounds in any way, simply didn't let go as they were both falling.

Motion on wills. One call was the snap. A rare occurance and has not been an issue. You can emphasize it to hopefully keep it from happening again.

2nd motion on Wills. apparently a ghost call in honor of halloween. Two of us (not me) who looked at it saw no foul.

Kuznia holding. I only saw the end of this play, i didn't see the hold but generally when you're falling on top of another player as he's turning away you'll get the call. refs can infer, although sometimes incorrectly.

TA, I think he got flagged for holding twice. This can be addressed.

Weber illegal shift. I missed it so can't address it, but this is certainly the kind of thing that we can get rid of easily.
 

The holding penalties i don't think are brew's fault. The ones on brew are celbration/taunting, unsportsman like, and roughing.
 



MNfootballfan said:
The late hit on the kickoff was crazy. Someone with a better view might prove me wrong, but I am convinced from where I was sitting (section 105) we had the returner wrapped up in bounds and brought him down out of bounds. It wasn't a dirty or malitious hit, just football.
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I rewatched the game when I got home last night so I saw what the refs were looking at. The penalty was called on Dandridge and it wasn't related to the tackle out of bounds. Dandridge was about 5 yards down field and after the MSU ballcarrier was tackled a Michigan State player shoved Dandridge in the back knocking him in to the MSU sideline. The MSU player should have been called for either a block in the back or a late hit. Dandridge took offense to the cheap shot and turned around and pushed the MSU player in retaliation. Unfortunately the refs only called the retaliation (the much softer push of the two) which was their biggest mistake on the play.

MNfootballfan said:
Then the roughing the QB...I am extremely confused by this. He threw the ball towards the bench, we had the QB wrapped up for a sack when he threw the ball. If everytime the QB is about to get sacked and just tosses the ball in the air is it a roughing the QB? When is it a QB hurry and when is it roughing? Why did the flag come out after the ball hit the ground?
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IMO a somewhat borderline call. Simoni was going for the ball in the QB's arm and he missed and came in to contact with the QB's head. The factor that I think is missed is that Small hit the QB in to Simoni and I'm not sure whether Simoni would have actually hit him in the head if the QB wasn't hit by Small. Considering how refs protect QB's these days I can understand why they called it but at the game I thought it was for Small's hit which wasn't late.

MNfootballfan said:
Now, the way the fans and players responded to the two calls was amazing. I honestly thing those two calls win the game for the gophers. The intensity level in the entire stadium skyrocketed. It is kind of nice watching a Gopher game and not wondering, "how are we going to lose this?" After the two penalties and then the stop I had a confident feeling this was the Gopher's night.
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Agreed. The volume of the stadium seemed to double after those two calls. It disrupted the MSU offense leading to one false start penalty (it should have been 2 but for some reason on the 3rd down conversion to Blair White the refs missed the TE jumping), one delay of game, and one timeout to avoid a delay of game.
 


Schnoodler said:
I've been trying to find a home for this post. Didn't want to start another penalty/officiating thread so I'll put it here.

Seventeen penalties are a lot. no question about it. But if you think it's easy to get rid of them I don't think it is. Let's look at them.

I can't remember all 17 so add on if you can.

Stoudemire taunting...raising is arms in the air accepting the cheers, not facing any sparty player. He actually moved away from the finishing spot of the play to be sure he was clear.
That one was weak I thought, you see much worse all the time. Easily fixable though.

QB roughing...lawrence head smash. A result of leaping to attempt to deflect the pass and continuation hit the QB in the head. Auto call. How do you coach that out? What do you say? Only use gator arms when trying to deflect a qb pass??
Iffy call, but I don't think you fault Lawrence at all. This is a prime example of why I hate that rule. Is a defensive player supposed to stop in mid-air so he doesn't hit the guy? Might have been the right call by rule, but you can't tell a defender to not put his hands up.

Late hit...initiated contact in bounds. shouldn't have been called but was because he didn't release the player as they tumbled. This can be coached out, but clearly an iffy call. He didnt' throw the player down, didn't add to the tackle out of bounds in any way, simply didn't let go as they were both falling.
Haven't seen the replay, was tough to see at the game from the other side.

Motion on wills. One call was the snap. A rare occurance and has not been an issue. You can emphasize it to hopefully keep it from happening again.

2nd motion on Wills. apparently a ghost call in honor of halloween. Two of us (not me) who looked at it saw no foul.

Kuznia holding. I only saw the end of this play, i didn't see the hold but generally when you're falling on top of another player as he's turning away you'll get the call. refs can infer, although sometimes incorrectly.
Kuznia threw a great block with his hands inside. He had jersey but was pushing him to the ground. When the player fell he still had his jersey. An easy call when their bodies separate and he has jersey. If he just lets go, there wouldn't have been a penalty.

TA, I think he got flagged for holding twice. This can be addressed.

Weber illegal shift. I missed it so can't address it, but this is certainly the kind of thing that we can get rid of easily.
Think they just called it on the wrong guy. We were in shotgun, one of our TE's went in motion, then our RB (Bennett?) shifted to the other side of Weber. It was a good call.
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Stoudemire was not a taunting call. It was for posing and bringing attention to himself. Pose with the ball and it will be 15 yards every time. If he drops the ball, jumps up and down, and celebrates there is no call.

These penalties are all on Brewster. I love the emotion they play with, but they need to do more celebrating than showboating.

Not sure if this was ever mentioned, but I think one of our players did a flip in the endzone after one of our scores. Two MSU players went to the officials, but I don't believe any of them saw it. That would have been another 15 yards.
 

"These penalties are all on Brewster"

Absolutely! No excuse for these at this point of the season. The back flip in the end zone should result in a benching. Its all about focus and discipline and this behavior is expensive in terms of losses.
 


MaxyJR1 said:
Not sure if this was ever mentioned, but I think one of our players did a flip in the endzone after one of our scores. Two MSU players went to the officials, but I don't believe any of them saw it. That would have been another 15 yards.
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I forgot about that one! I'm pretty sure that was Stoudimier too (wasn't it after his TD that was overruled by the replay official). I remember seeing that and going "cool backflip! now where is the flag that is certainly coming?"
 

Thank You.

MaxyJR1 said:
Stoudemire was not a taunting call. It was for posing and bringing attention to himself. Pose with the ball and it will be 15 yards every time. If he drops the ball, jumps up and down, and celebrates there is no call.

These penalties are all on Brewster. I love the emotion they play with, but they need to do more celebrating than showboating.

Not sure if this was ever mentioned, but I think one of our players did a flip in the endzone after one of our scores. Two MSU players went to the officials, but I don't believe any of them saw it. That would have been another 15 yards.
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Totally agree, and what I said last night. If Stoudemire gives the ball to the official and then celebrates a little, no call. Advice on this is act like you've been there. I have no problem with pumping emotion into the team, I do have a problem with a player who forgets that it took 11 players for that completion to happen. Was a great play and catch, but Troy had a little help.

Kuznia's hold was silly. As someone mentioned, he made a great block, the ball was well past him and he held on, got pulled down by the MSU player because he didn't let go and took a stupid penalty that might have cost us the game.

All in all, the only one I thought was bad was the "out of bounds call" but I didn't see the behind the scenes impact noted above.

The hands to the head call would be much easier to swallow as being agressive if we didn't have a stupid play in all save one game this year. Most of them aren't "bad" fouls, but all of them have been fouls and have been correctly called.

At least this week the worst one wasn't by us. That running into the kicker (which probably should have been roughing the kicker, he didn't bump into him, he hit him with most of his body) and ended MSU's chances.

Someone mentioned in a different thread that this is a year to year fix. These have been getting worse with each year which is a major concern for me. We won't win too many games in which we have 100+ yards in penalties. Fortunately, we were able to overcome it last night.
 

The Back Flip...

I've not rewatched the game but I'm 99% sure the backflip was Troy. It happened so fast that I couldn't believe it...and when a penalty was not called...I couldn't believe that either.

I'm glad I wasn't hallucinating that one...

Go Gophers! Beat the Illini!
 

Khaliq said:
Interestingly Michigan State fans think they got hosed by officiating.
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If I were an MSU fan I would still be complaining about the TA incomplete pass that could have been ruled a fumble. That was a game changing decision for both teams.
 

No question the refs called an awful game. The only mitigating factor is they hosed both teams (we got a gift with the TA non-fumble). But in just about every case we got flagged our player(s) gave the refs and excuse to pull the hanky. I can understand the refs calling a ridiculously tight game if its getting out of hand with cheap shots and they're losing control. But by and large both teams played clean.

What to do about it? In a perfect world you bench anyone who commits a PF, taunts, or does something stupid that costs us 15 yards. As others have pointed out though, given our lack of depth we don't have that luxury like Joe Paterno might. My biggest concern after watching the replay last night is they showed a lot of shots of Brewster jawing at the refs after some of these cheesy calls. Not once did they show him chewing out the player who incurred the penalty (not to say it didn't happen). I think this sends a bad message to the players, in that the penalties are not their fault. Hopefully by next year we'll have enough of a depth chart that if someone decides to pose after a big catch, they can spend the rest of the game filling gatorade cups on the sideline.
 

IIRC, the BTN didn't show Brewster jawing at the refs over calls until we had already amassed enough penalties for two games. I'm guessing that's because Brew didn't start complaining until the number of penalties was getting ridiculous. If that's the way it was, then I have no problem with Brew letting the officials know that. I also wonder if we get the TA fumble call if Brew wasn't already being very vocal about the officiating. That call could easily have gone against us, and just maybe Brew's forceful dialogue before that play gave us the edge. Refs are human too, and they may have realized they had been calling the game too closely up to that point.
 

ESPN loves the flips into the end zone. It's the little extra that gets you on the highlight reel. But it hurts your team. If you don't deal with it early, it will keep going on and keep hurting your team.
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
No question the refs called an awful game. The only mitigating factor is they hosed both teams (we got a gift with the TA non-fumble). But in just about every case we got flagged our player(s) gave the refs and excuse to pull the hanky. I can understand the refs calling a ridiculously tight game if its getting out of hand with cheap shots and they're losing control. But by and large both teams played clean.

What to do about it? In a perfect world you bench anyone who commits a PF, taunts, or does something stupid that costs us 15 yards. As others have pointed out though, given our lack of depth we don't have that luxury like Joe Paterno might. My biggest concern after watching the replay last night is they showed a lot of shots of Brewster jawing at the refs after some of these cheesy calls. Not once did they show him chewing out the player who incurred the penalty (not to say it didn't happen). I think this sends a bad message to the players, in that the penalties are not their fault. Hopefully by next year we'll have enough of a depth chart that if someone decides to pose after a big catch, they can spend the rest of the game filling gatorade cups on the sideline.
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Seems that Brew might have the attitude that if you play for me you're excused...no adverse consequences...that's generally not a good policy in any situation where one is trying to reinforce some discipline in behavior because the player attitude tends to become "no consequences" == "no limits". Unfortunately for Brew & GN, maybe its going to take a big loss or two due to stupid penaltiies before the Gs take the penalty issue seriously...rather adverse consequences.
 

I don't know the answer, but since Lawrence made contact Cousins' helmet, does that negate everything that happened on that play? The QB is pretty clearly in the pocket and that ball ended up 5 yards out of bounds. How is that not grounding?
 

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