SEC’s decision to not suspend Dial sends wrong message
Aaron Murray crumbles after helmet-to-helmet hit by Alabama's Quinton Dial. (Curtis Compton/AJC)
If Alabama goes on to defeat Notre Dame in the BCS championship game, there’s a pretty good chance that Quinton Dial will play only a minor role. So the problem with what happened Friday is not that the SEC just gave Alabama some unfair advantage by avoiding suspending one of its players — the problem is that it is sending mixed messages about how much it really cares about head injuries in football.
Or are hits to the head only important when it’s convenient?
After reviewing three plays from the SEC championship game between Georgia and Alabama, most notably Dial’s helmet-to-helmet hit on Bulldogs quarterback Aaron Murray, the conference declined to issue any suspensions, releasing a statement that said, “After review, all subsequent action will be handled internally by the two institutions and the conference office is satisfied with their actions.”
To translate: The SEC will allow Alabama coach Nick Saban to decide whether to suspend one of his defensive ends for the national championship game. Insert laugh track.
Now, before we jump into the obvious conspiracy theories — 1) Is SEC commissioner Mike Slive just doing whatever he can to ensure the conference wins its seventh straight BCS title; and 2) Will he be mowing Nick Saban’s lawn after the game? — let’s give equal time to the game’s infractions. Steve Shaw, the SEC’s director of officials, also reviewed a roughing-the-passer penalty on Georgia’s Alec Ogletree and deemed it not worthy of a suspension. He also looked at Sheldon Dawson’s attempted eye-gouge of Alabama’s Dee Millner following a kickoff return. Again, no suspension.
Shaw said Dial's hit should've been a penalty but didn't rise to level of suspension. (AP photo)
But Dial’s second-quarter helmet-to-helmet hit on Murray — see video below –easily was the most flagrant foul in the game, made worse by the fact that no flag was thrown. Murray had just had a pass intercepted by Alabama’s Ha’Sean Clinton-Dix at the Tide’s 18. During the return, Murray became a defensive player and Dial had the right to block him. But he came from out of view and collided with Murray helmet-to-helmet. CBS analyst Gary Danielson said, “Aaron Murray, you have to keep your head on a swivel, but that is just unnecessary roughness and a hit to the head …”
Shaw said Dial should’ve been called for a personal foul. “We should’ve flagged it,” he said, adding that an official who seemed to be looking at the play actually was focused on something else. (Note: Even if Dial was penalized, it would’ve affected field position but Alabama would’ve retained possession
Slive's SEC can win seventh straight BCS title. Conspiracy theorists: That was a factor. (AP photo)
because the hit came after the interception.)
The bigger issue here is why Dial is not being suspended. The SEC has suspended three other players for hits to the head, one last season for an Arkansas player’s hit on a punt returner; two this season for hits by Mississippi and South Carolina defensive backs against wide receivers. I spoke to Shaw for 30 minutes and he never would, or could, give specifics as to what prevented Dial’s hit from being considered worthy of a suspension.
He talked about the players in the other three situations being “defenseless.” He talked about the fact that Murray was technically a “defender.” He went on about how “our commissioner and really the SEC has been at the forefront of player safety.”
But when asked for specifics about what Dial would have had to do get suspended, Shaw spoke in grays.
“Do I condone hit? No. It’s something that should’ve been [penalized],” Shaw said. “But as for the acid test of the other one-game suspensions, overall it doesn’t rise to the same level.”
Here’s the problem: A conference either sets the bar on helmet hits and head injuries or it doesn’t. This looks fishy, especially given the proximity to BCS championship game.
When asked if this same decision would’ve been made in September, Shaw said, “My commissioner would say, ‘I don’t really go into hypotheticals.”
When told that left the door open to theories that Alabama and Dial were being given preferential treatment because of the title game, he again gave a vague response.
Finally when asked a third time if the impending BCS title game influenced the SEC’s decision to not suspend Dial, Shaw said, “No.”
But I’m less concerned about Quinton Dial than I am the seriousness of head injuries in football. With the blur of concussion-related litigation in the NFL and the suicides of several former players being tied to depression, dementia and other forms of brain damage resulting from head injuries, this is no time for inconsistent rulings from conference officials. There is too much at stake.
Yes, even more than a BCS title.
By Jeff Schultz
•
Here’s one YouTube view of Dial’s hit on Murray
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446 comments Add your comment
GA Tech ....
December 14th, 2012
12:54 pm
Man DIT, you know how to hurt a guy……UGA and VaTech already put up 52 against us….do you think USC will also??? Please have mercy on us- we have a losing record.
bamagrad02
December 14th, 2012
12:55 pm
As a Bama fan, the correct call would’ve been a personal foul on Alabama. The ref missed it. SInce the ref missed it we should suspend the player?…Not in my opinion. If anyone should be suspended maybe its the ref who witnessed the play. Quinton DIal was doing what defenders are taught from pee-wee to pro football and that is to take out the quarterback when there is an interception. Murray shares blame here too, he needs to know that he is a live defender and eligible to be layed out on block as he was. The hit was helmet to helmet which deserves a penalty, but I have no problem with the intent of the play.
Funny
December 14th, 2012
12:55 pm
Schultz, you supported the NCAA/SEC decisions regarding Scam Newton, but because this decision (you think) impacted the outcome of the game, you disagree with it.
Again, what happened in one day for the NCAA to reverse its 1 day decision and unsuspend Scam right before the Auburn/Bama game.
I tell you what happened…again. Mark Emmert was a student, cheerleader (true) and President of Washington University. Oregon of recent has owned Washington. He knew Auburn had a better chance of beating Oregon than TCU did, hence the decision because Bama would have won and TCU would have played Oregon.
DIT
December 14th, 2012
12:55 pm
Who knows BHS – Maybe next year though I think the Gators might have something to say about the Dawgs getting back to the SEC CG. That was a heck of a game. Nothing to be ashamed of.
Lance
December 14th, 2012
12:56 pm
HMMMMMMM. Oh Jeff….do you remember writing this?
http://blogs.ajc.com/jeff-schultz-blog/2009/11/02/florida-suspends-spikes-for-only-one-half-of-game/
Interesting read…Sheldon Dawson anyone?
DIT
December 14th, 2012
12:57 pm
Actually I think the old “Peach Bowl” will be one of the better ones.
LSU 24 Clem 21
Surprise article from the ajc...
December 14th, 2012
12:57 pm
Total BS article. Look at the hit and look at Dial afterwards. He was try to make a block on a player. It may have been too rough but he was making a block not trying to take out a player. He lead with his shoulder and then hit helmet to helmet. Now look at the hit to AJ. It was helmet to helmet after the pass and at no point was AJ considered a defensive player. Lastly look at the eye gouging. This is the one that is undefensable. Its not during the play and it has nothing to do with football. Now if you want to say it was unnecessary roughness and a hit to the head then fine it shouldve been a call but to suspend someone for that is just BS. I hope the dawgs and bama win the bowl game but this whole issue is bs.
Cotton
December 14th, 2012
12:58 pm
Jeff Schultz may want to go back and review his own words about eye-gouging:
Meyer goes soft on Spikes with half-game suspension
1:16 pm November 2, 2009, by Jeff Schultz
Urban Meyer just took, “Stand by your man,” a little too far.
Florida coach Urban Meyer’s apparent policy on eye-gouging is now clear. Only a successful blinding or maiming can result in a full-game suspension.
Meyer suspended Brandon Spikes for only the first half of the Gators’ next game against Vanderbilt for eye-gouging Georgia running back Washaun Ealey.
I’m not sure if missing one half of a Vanderbilt game really qualifies as discipline. But apparently SEC commissioner Mike Slive didn’t want to get in Meyer’s way on this one. I guess Slive only worries about the real serious issues: sound bites about referees, not trivial matters like jamming fingers into eyeballs.
What happened Saturday certainly did not affect the outcome of Georgia’s 41-17 loss to Florida. The Bulldogs themselves have devolved into one of the nation’s most-penalized and least-disciplined teams. Meyer felt compelled to say the linebacker was retaliating for earlier incidents that resulted in him having his helmet knocked off and being poked in the eye (he said).
But Spikes’ act was on another level.
“I don’t condone that,” Meyer told reporters in Florida. “I understand what goes on on the football [field], but there’s no place for that. We’re going to suspend Brandon for the first half of the Vanderbilt game. I spoke with him. That’s not who he is. That’s not who we are. He got caught up in emotion.”
Ealey was not available for comment Monday. It was a day off for Georgia players (the NCAA mandates one day off per week for players). Coach Mark Richt declined comment on the incident Sunday night.
But that didn’t stop this from snowballing into a national story Monday. The strongest comments came from Mike Golic, co-host of ESPN’s morning, “Mike and Mike” radio show. Golic has some credibility. He was a defensive lineman at Notre Dame and an eight-year NFL veteran. He has been at the bottom of a few of these piles. So what does it mean when he calls this, “one of the biggest chicken-bleep things I’ve seen in my life”?
And what does it mean when he says it was worse than when Oregon’s LeGarrette Blount punched Boise State’s Byron Hout in the season opener? (Blount initially was suspended for the full season by Oregon. But several weeks later the school announced a tentative reinstatement, and he may return this week against Stanford.)
“You can clearly see Brandon Spikes’ fingers go into the facemask of the running back for Georgia, and, I don’t mean just go in there — go in there and twist around,” Golic said. “It is a bad looking eye-gouge. And I know this guy is a tough player and I know he hits and I know he’s considered one of the best linebackers. But that’s one of the biggest chicken-bleep things I’ve seen in my life. Ever. Ever! To be that good of a player and have to do that – stick your fingers in a facemask and try to blind a guy, eye-gouge him, is pathetic, Brandon! Pathetic, that you would do it!
“There needs to be some disciplinary action. Everybody wants to talk about LeGarrette Blount from Oregon for punching that kid. I’ll tell you what. I’ll take the punch over this garbage. Any day of the week. Any day of the week over that garbage on the field of sticking your fingers in somebody’s facemask and trying to blind him. Stick your fingers in their eye? Are you kidding me…?”
Golic later said: “What a horrible move that is. What a classless, unsportsmanlike move that is.”
Meyer said his wife and defensive coordinator Charlie Strong both mentioned the Spikes’ incident to him. His initial reaction was to move on. Then he saw a replay of the incident decided to speak to Spikes about it.
But his initial balking indicates he didn’t want to suspend Spikes at all.
“Very emotional things happened in that game in particular that were not good for either side,” Meyer said, “but the bottom line is we’re Florida and he’s Brandon Spikes and we expect certain things.”
Nice speech. But it would’ve meant more if there was some action to back it up.
DP
December 14th, 2012
12:58 pm
Pathetic Jeff. Dial should have been flagged but he didn’t lead with his helmet or intentionally go for Murray’s head. The problem is Dial is 5-6 inches taller than Murray and he didn’t get down low enough to hit him completely below the head. I don’t know how you think that play was worse than trying to gouge somebody in the eye, which has nothing to do with making a football play and was after the play was over. Brandon Spikes did that a couple of years in a pile against Georgia and we heard about that for weeks.
Tackling or blocking by leading with the helmet is one thing, a defender hitting primarily at and below the shoulders while unintentionally making helmet to helmet contact because he’s taller or because the offensive player ducks his head is another. I think intent is what usually should determine suspension or no suspension.
I saw two of the other three plays that earned a suspension from the SEC in the last 2 seasons, and they were both a long way from the Dial play. In one of them, a guy on kick coverage blew up the punt receiver going full blast right through him well before the ball even there. And then he danced around celebrating. The other one was a DB who blasted a defenseless receiver and then did a little dance while the receiver was laying on the field. If Dial had put on a demonstration after the play or taunted Murray I’d agree a suspension was warranted and he probably would have gotten one from the SEC.
With regard to the Saban and the laugh track crack, given Georgia’s proclivity for late hit personal fouls over the last few years I’d hope you wouldn’t pretend that Mark Richt would suspend one of his players for the bowl game in the same circumstances. Saban had a backup lineman (LaMichael Fanning) body slam a Missouri player late in the game earlier this year. It was a Nick Fairley type dirty play, much worse in my opinion than Dial’s hit on Murray. The SEC didn’t suspend Fanning but he didn’t make the trip to the next game against Tennessee.
Boo Boo
December 14th, 2012
12:59 pm
I think the only one wishing he were a minor god is Jeff “Bulldog” Schultz. The real bisquit crux here is What the Heck is the NCAA anyway? It is some kind of Barney Fife police department in the middle of the Big City of professional football. Occasionally it gets on a scooter car and gives out parking tickets for illegally (local ordinances) seducing young boys to come be their fan bait. BUT, they know who pays their salaries and HUGE retiement pensions, as the NCAA is just a lap dog in a show that is run more by universities like Alabama and Georgia, where game officiating is about as bad as wrassling referees (always looking the other way when someone slips a wrassler an iron bar to hit his opponent with … but its really just a styrofoam prop). The NFL dropped the Bounty Gate charges, so it is back to open season on players that have the best chance to single-handedly change the outcome of a game that is a TEIAM sport (see the I in TEAM?). Aaron Murray always has the option to quit football, if it is too dangerous. All defensive players have the option of taking knives in the socks and stabbing anyone they please, as long as they know the cameras will catch it AND it might end up as a 15-yard penalty. Only in ice hockey do real police come onto the field of play (rink) and arrest thugs and charge them with 20-year to life imprisonment. So, Jeff Schultz, ease up on the NCAA.
DIT
December 14th, 2012
12:59 pm
The entire issue just needs to be dropped!! It’s over! Who else has some predictions of the bowl scores? I’m trying to change the subject here gang!
Gator
December 14th, 2012
12:59 pm
Bama has been known for years to play dirty. It is also known that bama owns the sec office. Maybe justice will prevail and Mr. Dial will get his due and have to be helped off the field. There is no room at all for players like him in college, pro, peewee any kind of sport.
Jeffro Bodeen
December 14th, 2012
1:01 pm
The lack of action is even more flagrant than Dial’s hit on Murray……Oh what a joke the Commission is……
Alabama Jack
December 14th, 2012
1:01 pm
Peter
:TOGA…..you are the slime of the earth…actually thought people from Tuscaloosa would have been humbled after the F5….aparently, that’s not the case with you moron…
You are beneath slime – anyone who takes joy from the devastation of a natural disaster and the deaths of innocent people can only be a single tooth egg sucking inbred UGA fan with a single digit IQ and no branches in the family tree.
BillySECfan
December 14th, 2012
1:01 pm
FWIW, it wasn’t helmet to helmet hit, but shoulder to shoulder. The TV guys jumped in to fan an issue discussed all season. Rogers is loping toward Dix returning the ball & could have become involved in an attempted tackle. The block was legal for that reason alone. To me, the attempted gouging was much more flagrant.
Dum-Bass
December 14th, 2012
1:01 pm
Here’s betting money that Saban will hold Dial out for the first quarter, and that will be it. This is your usual travesty and favoritism that exists in the SEC. The NBA has already lost me and college football is not far behind.
DeezNutz
December 14th, 2012
1:01 pm
Can’t believe it’s not a suspension. If Murray wasn’t a badass and ended up out of the game after that hit, then it would have been a suspension. Penalize the action not the result. Effing idiots at the SEC aren’t helping our national reputation as a league that will do anything to win. Consistency is key. I missed the Dawson eye gouge, but if he tried to gouge someones eye out then he should be suspended too.
Mark
December 14th, 2012
1:02 pm
If you are going to suspend Dial, then you have to suspend Ogletree as well. Slippery slope. It was not obvious that Dial had any intent to hit the head and the play was still ongoing when it happened.
David C
December 14th, 2012
1:03 pm
Should there have been a Foul for Helmet to Helmet the answer is Yes. But to suspend would have actually been crossing the line. Murray was with in 10 Yards of the Ball Carrier which made him legal to Block. Also what about the Georgia Player who did the Eye Poke seems like that player should have been suspended and it appears he is not. So the actions of the SEC Officials were correct. Even Murray himself said it was not Helmet to Helmet. So fans complaining are with Bais because there team lost the game. Ruling was correct..
What?
December 14th, 2012
1:03 pm
Irish 21 Bama Necks 17,then the crying starts from the necks.Maybe yall can hire Bobo.
DP
December 14th, 2012
1:04 pm
Cotton, good job on calling out Schultz’s hypocrisy on eye gouging depending on whether it’s a Gator playing for Urban Meyer (who he couldn’t stand) or a Dawg playing for Mark Richt.
DIT
December 14th, 2012
1:05 pm
Alright What?……… Who else sees the score the same way or differently?
DP
December 14th, 2012
1:06 pm
Jeff, could you explain the change in your opinion about eye gouging since what you wrote on the Spikes episode?
hornblowermg
December 14th, 2012
1:06 pm
the alabama stooge blind sided him and to the helmet. mccarron went crying to the ref after the play about a hit by ogletree that was very clearly onto his shoulder, and the ref joined him in the “crying game” with a late flag. i hope that the refs call “holding” on both teams in the ala-nd game.
DIT
December 14th, 2012
1:08 pm
Oh I give up y’all just want to live in the past instead of looking forward. The games over and every single one of the AJC sport “beat writers” have written about it. They know that the more people respond they keep their job.
Dead issue…. let’s move on. Don’t get suckered in!
furmanDawg
December 14th, 2012
1:09 pm
Hey, just so you all know. Schultz doesn’t go soft on the Dawgs. He’s not a homer. To me the game is over and I’m still proud of the way my team played. It’s a done issue and I’ll root for Bama to beat the Irish. But most of all I’ll pull for my Dawgs. Forgotten in all this is that Murray took a viscous hit and never missed a snap. That is one tough QB!
Susie Q
December 14th, 2012
1:10 pm
The same kind of “HIT” happened earlier in the game with GA being penalized. Whose fault is it that it wasn’t called against Alabama??? Maybe the GA player should have also faced possible suspension???
Dawgs 73
December 14th, 2012
1:11 pm
To all the toilet paper faithful, go f yourself. You inbred idiots would be screaming like little toilet paper baby’s if it were your qb on the other end of this play.
J'Dinkalage Morgoone
December 14th, 2012
1:13 pm
David C – where is it that Murray comments on the hit? That would certainly put an end to this issue if he said that it wasn’t a helmet-to-helmet hit. I’ve never heard so many complaints about officiating a game. It is tarnishing the legacy of the greatest SEC Championship game ever played. Maybe one of the best college football games of all time considering what was at stake, who was involved, and how close it was. Shame on everyone trying to find blame for losing the game vs. applauding the effort both teams displayed trying to win the game.
Two weeks of “We should have spiked it”, “The receiver should have battled the ball down”, “Dial should have been suspended”……enough.
Orlando Dawg
December 14th, 2012
1:14 pm
If Ogletree got called, what the H*ll was the no-call hit on Murray!!! Refs gave Bama the edge, that was clear to see…
DP
December 14th, 2012
1:14 pm
“screaming like little toilet paper baby’s”
Do they teach the automatic use of apostrophes to denote plural in Athens?
Paul in NH
December 14th, 2012
1:17 pm
Perhaps the guys from the SEC office were too busy at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum looking for more revenue streams to worry about the health and safety of the “amateur student-athletes”
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Conferences-Events/2012/2012-Intercollegiate-Athletics-Forum.aspx
Nah – nothing corrupt in CFB
Athensdawg
December 14th, 2012
1:17 pm
I love all of the Bama people, as long as it is for Bama there is no wrong. Lets see poison trees in Auburn, no problem, Rub your genitals in a passed out LSU fans face, “just boys being boys” no problem. So a cheap shot on a quarterback is just child’s play. At least they spread it around, no other school is safe from there classlessness.
JB
December 14th, 2012
1:18 pm
No surprise here. Just like the rich guy in a small town that owns and runs everything, I think we all knew what was coming. Nothing No doubt Bama has a great team and Saban is a very good coach…….But The hit was NOT LEGAL. The coach’s ought to demand an out of conference crew work that game from now on. Would that had made a difference in the outcome, no….but let’s take ALL the suspense out of the slant in officiating, real or not.
Bo Duke
December 14th, 2012
1:23 pm
Hey Honblowermg……………………
Roll Tide
Enjoy the Capital One who gives a crap bowl.
Bama will be busy winning another NC
Take heart though I am sure UGA will get another chance………………….in 32 years.
GTBob
December 14th, 2012
1:23 pm
Its not surprising because it was a legal play. If UGA had done this to McCarron you guys would be celebrating instead of whining. Murray was moving towards the ball carrier and he was viciously blocked. If he doesn’t want to get hurt then tell him to run to the sidelines or curl up on the ground in the fetal position while the non pansies on the field make tackles.
DISGRACE
December 14th, 2012
1:26 pm
They suspend during the season but not for a big game and a flagarant penalty.
Pathetic job by the officials that day and the SEC. The SEC office has no accountability
and modeled how to not be fair.
The SEC is the greatest show on earth except for the officials.
JB
December 14th, 2012
1:26 pm
I think most educated Bama fans would not condone the hit. The ones that troll here would kill kin to win a title. Wonder what Mr. Shaw would think if Murray was in the hospital paralyzed ? Should of been a flag…..Geez.
DISGRACE
December 14th, 2012
1:27 pm
GTBOB
you are a disgrace
JB
December 14th, 2012
1:28 pm
GTBob…..Helmet to helmet is legal?
DISGRACE
December 14th, 2012
1:28 pm
GTBOB
I feel confident that you have never made a tackle in your life except on XBOX.
Win P
December 14th, 2012
1:29 pm
IMO with deference to Mr. Slive & Mr.Shaw, they should do their jobs. Officials should have called all of the above mentioned incidents and awarded penalties and suspensions. Game is too physcial and possible lifetime consequences too great to tolerate selective penalities or sloppy officials.
Athens
December 14th, 2012
1:29 pm
@Athensdawg
Great post! Amen…….
Too bad JS didn’t ask: “Steve, Alabama only had two penalties called against them all night, one was an illegal procedure on their fake punt in the first half and the other was a pesonal foul in the second half; is this a record for an SEC game? UGA players were talking to the refs about their jerseys being pulled over and over again with no hiolding calls, have you taken a look? And, Georgia was flagged 3 times, alone, when the Tide was on their heels after an unconverted 3rd down giving them new life each time. Just seems a little odd don’t you think?”
terry
December 14th, 2012
1:30 pm
Schultz, you are clueless & need to crawl out from under from under the rock. You don’t know how things work in this conference. This is not a surprise.
toga's family tree has no limbs
December 14th, 2012
1:32 pm
@toga: So you say it’s a clean hit huh? Is this the same logic you use to explain to people how it’s perfectly acceptable for your sister to give birth to your son?
Roll Tide Roll….around the bowl and down the hole! I can’t wait for all the Bammer fans’ reaction when Notre Dame beats them and then Saban bolts to the NFL…..Enjoy the success now cause things always cycle around and Bamma will soon retreat back to mediocrity
Cornbread Mafia
December 14th, 2012
1:35 pm
I call Bull Chit!
JB
December 14th, 2012
1:38 pm
People only get ugly and adamant about defending something……when they know they are wrong……..But don’t won’t to correct it to make a wrong right…..I not as upset about no suspension as I am about a ref looking right at and ignoring it. I’m telling ya, they need a Pac 10 crew flown in to do this game every year. I can only think of one coach who would object.
hammerhead
December 14th, 2012
1:38 pm
Any comment by a Georgia fan regarding this situation will on be construed as being a whiny cry baby. Congrats to Alabama. Kick ND’s arse. Also, it’s interestingto see UGA haters fill up this blog. I doubt there’s a single Alabama fan among them. It baffles my mind that the Georgia Tech fanbase is that fixated on Georgia football.
AtlantaTruth
December 14th, 2012
1:40 pm
Legitimate hit during play. Man up folks and let’s move on.
wade
December 14th, 2012
1:40 pm
Why in the world would anyone suspend him if it might help Notre Dame win? I’ll write a check for $5K right now if it would guarantee that pompous collection of religious hypocrites from South Bend loses.Schultz – all good sportswriters eventually become over the hill schmucks who need to move on to something else. You may be getting close. The reason these schmucks keep getting a paycheck past their prime is that there are enough schmucks out there buying papers that like to read the hot mess.