Enhance Your Experience
BCS vs College Football Playoff System? - Different Views Square Off
Believe it or not, I'm a BCS guy. There don't seem to be too many of us around.... or at least too many who'll admit it or aren't being paid good money for their stance.
Mike, he's a playoff guy.
Each of us has our reasons, so Mike and I decided to have a debate to discover why each other feels the way they do about the current state of college football.
College Football - Now Available Anywhere!
"When I was a kid I WAS the remote control."
If my kids had a quarter for every time they've heard that from me, they'd only have about a buck-fifty. I haven't used that one much, but on occasion I have tried to explain to my kids what it was like to watch football when I was a kid. It certainly wasn't like it is now - my hometown only got three channels and one of them was educational television. I didn't see anything on CBS until I got to Lincoln, then I was mesmerized by the Charlie Brown Christmas specials I'd never seen. My floormates in Schramm didn't understand that.
Eric Martin, Cheap Shot Artist or Victim of Overreaction?
I missed much of the Eric Martin controversy on Saturday, as I had turned away from the television when the replays came on, and so I never really saw anything about it until Tuesday night after finding it on YouTube.
The replays I've found are rather inconclusive to me as to whether he hit Andrew Hudson in the helmet first or in the shoulder. The replays I see suggest that Martin drove into Hudson's shoulder from the side, and the impact of the blow and the angle of the play led Martin's helmet into Hudson's facemask.
But watching these replays in a split-screen where the focus was on the larger field isn't particularly conclusive. The end zone view wasn't of much help here either. Again, it looks to me like he was making contact with the upper body, but then the angle and ferociousness of the hit led to a whiplash effect on Hudson.
But in the grand scheme of things, whether Martin aimed for the helmet or the shoulder doesn't really matter if you read Big XII Commissioner Dan Beebe's news release. You see, Martin wasn't suspended for hitting Hudson's helmet, he was suspended for leading with his helmet.
"Mr. Martin committed a flagrant act of targeting an opponent with the crown of his helmet in violation of NCAA Football Rules," Beebe said in his news release.
That changes the situation a bit, and when you look at the picture, you can see that the helmet is out in front of the rest of his body. So is that what got Martin in trouble? Well, look at the first picture, where Nebraska's Justin Blatchford is leading with his head. Same with several of the players in the second screen snapshot. The natural position of the body is to have the head leading the way in most of these football situations.
And that's the problem with this call. This type of play happens several times a game, but usually the other player isn't blindsided by it. The blindsiding in this situation wasn't Martin's fault. Hudson should have seen him coming, and frankly, should have been expecting contact.

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