You might've seen the grisly scene of Texas Longhorns fans, frustrated by a horrendous pass interference call against them,
chuck debris onto their home field in a rather harmless protest as far as ones involving flying projectiles go. https://twitter.com/espn/status/1847827778327990649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Can you really blame them? What else were they supposed to do? I legitimately could not tell you the last time bad officiating resulted in any meaningful disciplinary action for the crew. They get off scot-free, but if a player so much as breathes on them from too close a range? A 15-yard penalty at least that could cost them the game. An ejection is even in play. A five-figure fine in the NFL. And so on. Whenever players complain about a call that's obviously wrong — if only there was technology in Year 2024 to stop the game for 10 seconds and correct a plain as day blunder — they're demonized. The fans took action this time around, and well, the Southeastern Conference retaliated by hitting Texas with a $250,000 fine and potential Prohibition. All you really need to know is in the two tweets below. https://twitter.com/InsideTexas/status/1848112179993584034 https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1848100203389431962 This is pocket change for the Longhorns given how much NIL money they're shelling out and the fact that they can afford to display
an on-campus lineup of Lamborghinis to entice new recruits. Still, who's going to hold bad refs accountable? I wouldn't be on the fans' side so much if it didn't actually work. How many times do you become enraged on a Saturday or Sunday when you're watching your team and they either get a penalty called on them that isn't one, or they don't get the friendly whistle? Look what happened in Texas' case. The penalty got reversed! Actual, actionable change! Not sure how heavily surveilled the stadium is in Austin, but I'd be shaking in my boots a bit if I were one of the students who chucked debris onto the turf. There's no way Texas won't allow drinking at their football games. They merely have to come to the SEC with modified SOPs to curb
some of the drinking. Or at least make sure an incident like that doesn't happen again. Understood. Totally valid. Also though, maybe the refs could do their jobs good and make good calls so that debris isn't launched onto the field in the first place. I'm not the only one with this take, ye leadership at the SEC. The reactions to your excessive fine align with my views and I didn't even look until I wrapped this piece up. https://twitter.com/CFBmaps/status/1848161680431468805 https://twitter.com/JPC81/status/1848116271516102968 https://twitter.com/BrettBuechel/status/1848118432929075289 https://twitter.com/JBellSATX/status/1848149123221844251 https://twitter.com/Dropiscracked/status/1848153551450902787 https://twitter.com/TheTrentHarvey/status/1848149333184569709 https://twitter.com/jimisgal/status/1848193291184955597 https://twitter.com/Lindley_Nicole5/status/1848148369677447653
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