Unfortunately, the committee's jurisdiction does not extend to, say, society in general:
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to come with me."
"Why?"
"It's now a crime to block an entire supermarket aisle while you compare two somewhat identical jars of spaghetti sauce, punishable with up to five years imprisonment."
"On whose authority?"
"The NCAA Division I men's lacrosse rules committee."
Ah, to dream.
Sadly, TB's committee can't even change rules in other sports. As such, the best he can do is offer those who make the rules for football what his longtime friend and former colleague Jeff Graydon would call "a nickel's worth of free advice."
So here it is: When TB is in his meetings, he reminds the rest of the committee that there are three areas of priority — 1) player safety, 2) balance between offense and defense and 3) making it as easy as possible for the officials.
All three of those are covered in pass interference and targeting. It's nearly impossible for officials to find consistency in those two areas, as was clearly seen in the huge impact those calls (or non-calls) had on the biggest games this past weekend.
The first order of business would be to simplify what is and isn't a catch. Also, TB would suggest that the NFL rule match the college rule in that pass interference is 15 yards. Then, pass interference needs to be reviewable. Lastly, either call all helmet-to-helmet contact or change the rule; there are just so many such hits that go uncalled.
Games, championships and coaching careers all changed dramatically because of officials calls, where one game didn't match another. That's not a good situation to put the refs into, and the last thing you want is what football has brought on — questioning the legitimacy of the outcomes.
And for the record, TB doesn't believe the refs are "in on it" or anything. It's just the rules seem to bring out confusion.
So fix it. Don't make the Division I men's lacrosse rules committee have to take over.
Okay, with that out of the way, how about the big records that were set by Princeton athletes over the weekend. Starting on the track, both Georgina Scoot and Greg Foster set Ivy League records in jumping events.
Scoot set her record in the triple jump, going 13.47 meters (44' 2.5") to beat the existing mark of 13.44, which was set six years ago by Brown's Zion Lewis. Scoot, whose previous best was 13.16, now holds not only the Ivy record but also the top mark in Division I this season.
Foster set a new Ivy League record in the long jump, reaching 8.07 meters (26' 05.75"). How long had the previous record stood?
How about 36 years, since Princeton's Al Dyer went 8.00 in 1990.
Both Scoot and Foster are multiple time Ivy League Heptagonal champs and NCAA qualifiers. And they still have two more Heps and two more NCAAs to go.
The other record-setters were on ice, where the women's hockey team took down Harvard and Dartmouth at Baker Rink this past weekend by a combined 8-1. Issy Wunder and Jane Kuehl scored two each, while four other Tigers had one each for the weekend.
Uma Corniea stopped 34 of 35 shots for the two games, a performance that earned her a third ECAC Goalie of the Week award.
The win was the 13th straight for Princeton, which is now the longest streak in the history of the program. The Tigers are also 17-4-0 overall and now ranked seventh nationally.
Next up will be two more huge challenges, as No. 11 Cornell and No. 15 Colgate will be in Baker Rink Friday (6) and Saturday (3). This is from the pre-weekend story on goprincetontigers.com:
With 34 standings points, Princeton already has more points in the ECAC standings than it has had in a full season since 2020, when it had 35 and the year that it had its most recent high finish of second, along with 2019 and 2006. The league has been playing a 22-game season consistently since 2006-07 (other than the 2020-21 pandemic year), and in that time, 35 is the most ECAC standings points Princeton has had. Princeton has never won the ECAC regular-season title, but it does have an ECAC tournament title to its credit, won in 2020.
Three big-time records in one weekend? That's not too bad.
No comments:
Post a Comment