Southeastern Conference Responds to Tennessee/Ole Miss Chaos
I understand that college football is a sport filled with passionate people. The players, the coaches, the fans, are all invested in their team. Many of them, fans especially, are so invested in their team that they forget about common decency and mature behavior. Such was the case this past Saturday night in Knoxville Tennessee when the University of Tennessee Volunteers hosted Ole Miss.
Now if you missed the bizarre way this game ended, scroll down we've included a short video that shows all the lunacy as it unfolded.
That game actually had to be interrupted by nearly 20 minutes because of trash and bottles and other items being thrown on the field and in the direction of the Ole Miss team. Ole Miss Head Coach Lane Kiffin, a former Head Coach at Tennessee, was actually hit by a golf ball that was thrown from the stands.
The catalyst for the chaos appeared to unfold when Tennessee was ruled by game officials to have been stopped short on a fourth down play. The play was reviewed and the ruling on the field was confirmed. It was at that time some fans began to throw objects on the field of play.
The entire incident was displayed around the world via social media.
Meanwhile, the Southeastern Conference, the league that both Tennessee and Ole Miss belong to has issued a very strongly worded statement about the events of Saturday night in Knoxville. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey had this to say in that statement concerning the actions of Tennessee fans.
Well, Tennessee fans weren't going to just sit back and take the blame. Many of them fired back at the Commissioners statement. While most of them agreed that throwing things at football games is unacceptable, they did explain the reason for their frustration.
Several Volunteer fans via Twitter suggested that Ole Miss was faking injuries and that the SEC crew that was officiating the game was not in a position to make calls in key situations. Some even wanted to know what kind of punishment would be handed down to the officiating crew for their part in the game.
One fan even commented that Lane Kiffin, the Ole Miss Coach has a history of telling his players to fake injuries. That fan explained that Kiffin's stall tactics are the reason that the game took over four hours to complete.
Of course, Kiffin tossed it right back in the faces of the disgruntled Tennessee faithful.
So, here's the complete video of the chaos, if you didn't see it already.
Oh, and if you didn't figure it out, Tennessee lost the game by a final score of 31 to 26. Meanwhile, Ole Miss, currently ranked #12 in the Associated Press College Football Poll will take on LSU this Saturday in Oxford that game is scheduled for 2:30 on Saturday afternoon.
And one more thing, the rumor mill is going crazy over suggestions that Kiffin will be leaving Ole Miss to come coach at LSU once Ed Orgeron has finished the season as Tigers Head Coach. No confirmations, just conjecture at this point but it certainly would add some "heat" to the heated rivalries that LSU already has with Ole Miss and one of Kiffin's former teams Alabama. Stay Tuned.
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