Let The Players Play (And Fight)
Connor Strange
Co-Editor-In-Chief
The Miami Hurricanes returned to face the Huskers for the first time in nearly forty years of regular-season games on Saturday, September 20 - the result was a Husker victory and one dirty game of football.
Fights were fought and birds were flipped on the field, which caused many Husker football fans to become unnecessarily angry.
The matchup started as any other - it was football, simple and pure.
But that didn’t last long, as fights broke out along the line on two different occasions. The players became tangled and didn’t untangle themselves without the help of the officials.
Later in the game, Nebraska’s star running back Ameer Abdullah was on the receiving end of what some fans would call an unfair hit.
For a final flourish of foul manners, a player for the Hurricanes left the field with his middle finger held high.
These incidents caused hordes of Huskers to call out Miami players as thugs for their behavior Saturday, and loudly booed several times at their antics.
But the outbursts of anger present in that game don’t make the Hurricanes a thuggish, poorly-mannered team as a whole. There was fighting, but this is football.
Football isn’t a sport for sissies, as is so commonly said. It’s intense, and often dangerous to step onto the gridiron. So who cares if these Goliaths take their quarrel beyond the end of the play, aside from the officials?
Break it up, slap them on the wrists, and move on with the game. Nebraska fans have a positive reputation nationwide toward visiting football teams. Some questionable behavior from the opposition shouldn’t pull down the fans’ honor with it.
It certainly didn’t affect Abdullah’s. After the game, he shook hands and chatted with Miami players respectfully and cheerfully, despite the cheap hit on him earlier in the game.
Nobody feels enraged as hockey players throw off the gloves and throw down, unless it’s the result of an exceptionally against-the-rules play. The players fight it out, then get sent to the penalty box for a couple of minutes. No anger or disbelief from fans of either team. It seems backward that this violence is expected in one sport but decried in another.
When it comes down to it, the players get a little overheated and quit thinking rationally after battling 11 imposing facemasks and pairs of shoulderpads play after play. It’s not unusual, and it shouldn’t ruin a team’s reputation.
The frustration and rage that comes from attacking another man for hours at a time is a real thing many football players are affected by - they come to think of the padded mass across from them holding a three-point stance as an enemy. Sometimes it gets violent, and it’s nothing to get so upset about from the spectator’s position.
This initiative to save the players is hindering the game more than helping it. Refs should call the plays with a grain of common sense, not line-by-line with an unrealistic rulebook. If players get hurt, fans shouldn’t be surprised in a decidedly contact-centric sport. If there are life-long effects, then players should probably still feel lucky that they don’t look like retired boxers. Professional and collegiate football players know what they’re getting into well before they enter the field. It’s widely-known that football has reduced a few players from linebacker to garden vegetable.
There need to be regulations, but the rules themselves should be held in check. Football just isn’t as fun to watch with the referees mollycoddling the players because of overly protective rules.
Fights are an obvious exception, but no reason for Nebraska fans to tarnish their reputation as an exceptionally welcoming people.
