From: nichols@spss.com (David Nichols)
Subject: Re: Excessive Celebration Penalty
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 00:34:06 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.220833.29936@cs.ucla.edu> reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.194508.1732@spss.com> nichols@spss.com (David Nichols) writes:
>>>Do you really think the refs would have made the same call in Saturday's
>>>game if the roles were reversed, and the game were at Penn State?  I wonder.
>>
>>Yes, I think that call would have been made anywhere, at any time. If you
>>have the thing on tape, go back and time how long it took to clear the
>>field. That's not going to get past any officials under any circumstances.
>
>Does anyone remember an actual case in which a ref has made a call on
>this rule in a truly critical situation?  In the case of the Notre Dame
>game, a 15 yard penalty for celebration after the touchdown, on the
>2 pt. conversion try, would have essentially given the game to Penn State.
>Does anyone out there remember a similar case where the refs did call it?
>Or another case in which the refs took away a team's reasonable chance to 
>win for a celebration penalty?

The celebration penalty is pretty new, and most teams aren't stupid enough
to go crazy until the game is over. I do seem to remember a call on
Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl a few years back when the wagon came out on
the field and they got a penalty at what I seem to remember was a non-trivial
time.

>
>Personally, I don't think the refs should make that call, any place,
>against anybody, unless the circumstances are considerably worse than
>they were at ND.  (Maybe if the fans tear down the goalposts, for instance.)

This did actually happen in a 1-AA playoff a couple of years back (I don't
remember if a penalty was called or not--the score was 40+ to something
small though), when Georgia Southern's fans managed to have both sets of
goal posts down before time actually ran out on the clock.

>I would regard that kind of call as unwarranted interference with the
>game on the part of the officials.  I think what they did was perfectly
>appropriate, both not calling it after the touchdown and calling it
>after the conversion.  Notre Dame did suffer for the celebration, since

I think the decision not to call it after the touchdown is certainly one
where there is room for disagreement. The one they called though, I don't
see how you can say anything other than you dislike the rule and with
the officials would ignore it--under any reasonable interpretation of the
rules, that was a penalty.

>Penn State got a long shot at coming back to kick a field goal, mostly
>due to the celebration penalty on the kickoff.  Twenty seconds to go,
>with timeouts remaining, at mid-field, down by one is most decidedly not
>a sure loss.
>
>>I will say that the only team I've seen that even approaches Notre Dame
>>in terms of consistency of referee favoritism is Penn State, but only when
>>playing at home. Notre Dame gets referee blessings at home and on the road.
>
>I will refrain from posting the canonical list of times that Notre Dame
>got obnoxiously screwed by bad calls.  It's not too tough to make up such
>a list to match ever possibly unwarranted good call you might come up
>with.  But it's fairly pointless.  In my opinion, Notre Dame doesn't get 
>substantially more leniency from the refs than any other school does.  Can't 
>say that I've seen Penn State get a lot more than the typical home field 
>advantage, either.

I'm sure we could play tit for tat with stories about bad calls too, with
neither of us convincing the other. If anyone has access to any data that
might actually allow us to address this kind of question, I'll be glad to
analyze it. I've watched way the heck too many Notre Dame games to be at
all concerned that I'll be proven wrong on this. "God made Notre Dame #1"
is believed by way too many people, some official and pollsters among
them. For crying out loud, they've even got their own televison network
now.

--
 David Nichols        Senior Statistical Support Specialist         SPSS, Inc.
 Phone: (312) 329-3684     Internet:  nichols@spss.com     Fax: (312) 329-3657
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 Any correlation between my views and those of SPSS is strictly due to chance.