g$$
11-30-2006, 10:21 PM
**Good article comparing the hits last year on Colorado's QB with this year's A&M game. See what you think.
Big 12
Buck Harvey: Blame for Aggie hits goes higher
Web Posted: 11/29/2006 10:53 PM CST
San Antonio Express-News
The blow came as the dangerous ones do, helmet to head, with the quarterback vulnerable after a throw. The play drew a flag, which is standard, and the quarterback had to be carried off.
No one apologized afterward; no one even said much about it, except for the coach of the injured player. The winners were too busy celebrating, and, besides, isn't that college football?
Colt McCoy only watched that day.
Now, a year later, the Colorado quarterback struck by Texas the way McCoy was struck by the Aggies wonders when this will end.
"We've got to fix this," Joel Klatt said this week.
Klatt saw what happened to McCoy. Klatt's only memory of his own hit is through replays.
Klatt had suffered concussions before, and he says Texas gave him another earlier in the 2005 season. That play also drew a penalty.
But the one a year ago this week in the Big 12 title game frightened as no other. Then, late in the third quarter with Texas already routing Colorado 70-3, linebacker Drew Kelson came on a blitz. After Klatt threw, the crown of Kelson's helmet slammed into Klatt's chin.
The ref saw it correctly, and he threw a flag. But 15 yards didn't rectify much. Klatt stayed overnight in a Houston hospital, his wife of six months by his side, and he missed Colorado's bowl game.
Final exams a few weeks later were more telling. Klatt had made all-academic teams before, but he couldn't do better than a C on any of his tests.
"I got the worst grades of my life," he said this week by telephone from Colorado. "I couldn't read. Words would jell together."
He said various players and coaches called to wish him well, but he didn't hear from anyone at Texas. "It's not an importance to me," Klatt said. "To be shown some courtesy would have been nice, more so for my wife than me. But they were going to the national championship game and had more to worry about than me."
For those who wonder how the Aggies could celebrate in Austin with McCoy requiring a cart: That's an answer.
That doesn't make it right, and looking away only feeds the craziness. The media has been part of this, too.
Texas' Robert Killebrew, for example, drew four personal-foul penalties in 2005, including two in the Rose Bowl. But, as one newspaper story later framed it, Killebrew also helped "fuel the new image of the Longhorns as a rock 'em, sock 'em team that would tee off on its own grandmothers."
Fans love this macho edge. But what would happen if an NFL linebacker went after Peyton Manning the way an Aggie went after McCoy? What if Manning was 20 yards from the play, unbuckling his chinstrap after an interception, when clobbered?
The attacker would be fined and suspended.
"It's an investment thing," Klatt said. "The NFL knows what drives its sport, and the league protects its players because they sell."
Klatt says both hits he took from Texas last season would have earned a fine and/or suspension in the NFL. But the NCAA's only discipline has been to walk off 15 yards or eject.
Conference officials or the institution can always suspend. But Dennis Franchione isn't going to sit down a player any more than Bill Parcells would Roy Williams for a hit.
As for how often any college player has been suspended for a spear or late hit: Grant Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, can't remember one.
Teaff is concerned, which is why this issue is already on the agenda for his group when it meets in San Antonio in January. "Trust me," Teaff said this week, "there will be much discussion about this."
Klatt loves hearing that. "If they want to exploit us as athletes and sell our jerseys and put us on video games," Klatt said, "then they should protect us on the field better. Maybe then, in the future, we get that compensation and possibly go to the NFL."
And once in the NFL?
Then, among bigger and faster bodies, at least someone is looking out for them.
Big 12
Buck Harvey: Blame for Aggie hits goes higher
Web Posted: 11/29/2006 10:53 PM CST
San Antonio Express-News
The blow came as the dangerous ones do, helmet to head, with the quarterback vulnerable after a throw. The play drew a flag, which is standard, and the quarterback had to be carried off.
No one apologized afterward; no one even said much about it, except for the coach of the injured player. The winners were too busy celebrating, and, besides, isn't that college football?
Colt McCoy only watched that day.
Now, a year later, the Colorado quarterback struck by Texas the way McCoy was struck by the Aggies wonders when this will end.
"We've got to fix this," Joel Klatt said this week.
Klatt saw what happened to McCoy. Klatt's only memory of his own hit is through replays.
Klatt had suffered concussions before, and he says Texas gave him another earlier in the 2005 season. That play also drew a penalty.
But the one a year ago this week in the Big 12 title game frightened as no other. Then, late in the third quarter with Texas already routing Colorado 70-3, linebacker Drew Kelson came on a blitz. After Klatt threw, the crown of Kelson's helmet slammed into Klatt's chin.
The ref saw it correctly, and he threw a flag. But 15 yards didn't rectify much. Klatt stayed overnight in a Houston hospital, his wife of six months by his side, and he missed Colorado's bowl game.
Final exams a few weeks later were more telling. Klatt had made all-academic teams before, but he couldn't do better than a C on any of his tests.
"I got the worst grades of my life," he said this week by telephone from Colorado. "I couldn't read. Words would jell together."
He said various players and coaches called to wish him well, but he didn't hear from anyone at Texas. "It's not an importance to me," Klatt said. "To be shown some courtesy would have been nice, more so for my wife than me. But they were going to the national championship game and had more to worry about than me."
For those who wonder how the Aggies could celebrate in Austin with McCoy requiring a cart: That's an answer.
That doesn't make it right, and looking away only feeds the craziness. The media has been part of this, too.
Texas' Robert Killebrew, for example, drew four personal-foul penalties in 2005, including two in the Rose Bowl. But, as one newspaper story later framed it, Killebrew also helped "fuel the new image of the Longhorns as a rock 'em, sock 'em team that would tee off on its own grandmothers."
Fans love this macho edge. But what would happen if an NFL linebacker went after Peyton Manning the way an Aggie went after McCoy? What if Manning was 20 yards from the play, unbuckling his chinstrap after an interception, when clobbered?
The attacker would be fined and suspended.
"It's an investment thing," Klatt said. "The NFL knows what drives its sport, and the league protects its players because they sell."
Klatt says both hits he took from Texas last season would have earned a fine and/or suspension in the NFL. But the NCAA's only discipline has been to walk off 15 yards or eject.
Conference officials or the institution can always suspend. But Dennis Franchione isn't going to sit down a player any more than Bill Parcells would Roy Williams for a hit.
As for how often any college player has been suspended for a spear or late hit: Grant Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, can't remember one.
Teaff is concerned, which is why this issue is already on the agenda for his group when it meets in San Antonio in January. "Trust me," Teaff said this week, "there will be much discussion about this."
Klatt loves hearing that. "If they want to exploit us as athletes and sell our jerseys and put us on video games," Klatt said, "then they should protect us on the field better. Maybe then, in the future, we get that compensation and possibly go to the NFL."
And once in the NFL?
Then, among bigger and faster bodies, at least someone is looking out for them.