Missouri's Henry Josey (left) dives for the end zone and a touchdown as Iowa's Micah Hyde tries to trip hime up during the second quarter of the 2010 Insight Bowl at Sun Devil Stadium on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010, in Tempe, Ariz. (Jim Slosiarek/SourceMedia Group News)
CHICAGO — Bill Carollo knows there’s going to be some messy, controversial penalties calls this year. And he’s preparing everybody for the inevitable touchdown that’s coming off the board.
Carollo, the Big Ten’s director of officiating, said the league will enforce new college rules which classify excessive celebration penalties as live ball incidents. That means if a player dives into the end zone in show-boat fashion from the 2-yard line, the player will be flagged and the ball spotted at the 17-yard line, similarly to a clipping penalty.
“I’m confident we’ll have some controversy the first couple times,” said Carollo, a long-time NFL official. “It will get national attention. Either the coaches or the players learn their lesson. But we spent a lot of time in the spring, we’re going to continue that crusade to all the clubs in August here at camp, making sure the players understand what is and what is not a foul.”
The rule was sanctioned before the 2010 season but was not enforced last year. Carollo charted all potential excessive celebration penalties last year to see how many touchdowns would have been affected in 2010. He said the league prepared a national video tape for unsportsmanlike calls so all conference officials can review consistently.
“We had a handful of plays that we saw within the Big Ten or the groups that we manage,” Carollo said. “There were some key games, national TV games where we had diving into the end zone, for instance, that clearly was a foul, that clearly, last year, if they start their celebration, high-stepping, taunting their opponent, clearly they would have affected a scoring play last year.
Carollo said officials specificially would look for taunting.
“We allow them to have a spontaneous celebration,” Carollo said. “If it’s delayed, if it’s prolonged, if it’s excessive, if it’s choreographed, and if it’s toward their opponent or to draw attention toward themselves, you are getting into a gray area.
“If it fits the criteria, drawing attention to himself, taunting his opponent, this gets it into an area. But certainly I think there will be some controversy especially the first time we take away a scoring play. If he’s in the end zone, but if he dives in from the 2 or the 1, we’re in the proper position, we know it happened in the middle of the field, in the field of play, we will throw the flag and take away that. It will be controversial.”
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