No Decision Yet From The SEC On Fanning Play; Will Flagrant Foul Rule Allow For A Suspension?

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Get ready, conspiracy theorists.

The SEC office has suspended two players this season.  Mississippi defensive back Trae Elston and South Carolina defensive back DJ Swearinger were each benched a week for helmet-to-helmet hits back in September.  At the time, a few fans from both schools said that the SEC was simply picking on their teams and that the office would never suspend an Alabama player.  (Just as the league would never do anything anti-Kentucky in basketball.  Supposedly.)

Well, the SEC office hasn’t acted yet on a nasty takedown delivered by Bama defensive lineman LaMichael Fanning last Saturday.

When we asked associate SEC commissioner Charles Bloom if the league had a comment on the play or a suspension in the works, he responded with a quick:

“Nothing to report yet.”

That suggests that a suspension could still come.  And for the record, Elston’s suspension came down on a Tuesday while Swearinger’s was announced on a Monday.

As we noted yesterday, however, both of those players were suspended for a rule that is receiving special emphasis from the NCAA — and therefore conferences like the SEC — this season.  Defenseless receivers and punt returners are having their noggins protected from helmet-to-helmet hits by defensive players.

Here’s what the league said of Elston’s suspension:

“This action was the result of a flagrant and dangerous act which occurred at the 3:18 mark in the fourth quarter.  The action is in violation of Rule 9-1-4 of the NCAA Football Rule Book, which reads, ‘No player shall target and initiate contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, elbow or shoulder,’ and Rule 9-1-3 which states, ‘No player shall target and initiate contact against an opponent with the crown (top) of his helmet.’”

And here was the league’s take on Swearinger’s suspension:

“This action is the result of a flagrant and dangerous act which occurred at the 5:46 mark in the third quarter (of South Carolina’s game with UAB on Saturday).  The action is in violation of Rule 9-1-4 of the NCAA Football Rule Book, which reads, ‘No player shall target and initiate contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, elbow or shoulder.’

By playing rule, a defenseless opponent is defined by ‘one who because his physical position and focus of concentration is especially vulnerable to injury.’  One of the example in the rule book is a receiver whose focus in on catching a pass.”

Fanning’s body slam of Missouri tailback Russell Hansbrough was “a flagrant and dangerous act,” but is their a rule to apply here when it comes to an SEC suspension?  On the field, Fanning was flagged for unnecessary roughness.  But does that warrant a suspension?

In theory, yes.  But perhaps not in practice.

As you can see from this 2010 NCAA release, president Mark Emmert said: “The health and safety of student-athletes is the reason the NCAA was created.”  The NCAA’s supervisor of officials Rogers Redding — who once oversaw the SEC’s refs — said: “Student-athlete safety is of the utmost importance, and the Association will continue to protect its student-athletes.”

But the specific rule up for discussion in that release was Rule 9-1-4… no initiating contact with a defenseless player in the head and neck area.  As a sidebar, the NCAA pointed out that it had also outlawed the dangerous “horse-collar tackle” in 2008 and outlawed wedge blocking in 2010.

A quick glance at the NCAA’s 2012-13 rule book takes the time to better define and explain the following player “conduct” rules:

* Striking fouls and tripping

* Targeting/initiating contact with the crown of the helmet

* Defenseless player: contact to head or neck area

* Blocking below the waist

* Late hit, action out of bounds

* Roughing the passer

* Chop blocking

* Contact against snapper

* Horse-collar tackle

* Roughing or running into kicker or holder

* Continues participation without helmet

Fanning’s tackle doesn’t seem to fit into any of those areas.  So what about the actions that can get a player tossed from a game:

* Use of prohibited signal devices

* Use of tobacco

* Flagrant fouls

* Two unsportsmanlike fouls

* Illegal cleats

* Contacting an official

* Fighting

The flagrant foul issue stands out, doesn’t it?  Well, further digging into the rule book, here’s how that’s described in Rule 2-10-1:

“A flagrant personal foul is a rule infraction so extreme or deliberate that it places an opponent in danger of catastrophic injury.”

In the view of MrSEC.com, if the SEC is going to dole out a suspension to Alabama’s redshirt freshman backup for his lift-him-then-drop-him-on-his-head tackle, it’ll probably do so with Rule 2-10-1 in mind.  While “unnecessary roughness” is not a so-called point of emphasis for the NCAA and the SEC, player safety supposedly is.  Which means whether Fanning was forced to send letters of apology to Missouri or not — and he was — the SEC still needs to find some way to make it clear to other players that moves worthy of a wrestling ring do not belong on its football fields.  Suspending Fanning for a game would help send that message.

Rule 2-10-1 seems — from a very quick scan of the NCAA rule book — to be the area in which Mike Slive and the league office can act.  Or perhaps they’ll find another rule to use.  Or perhaps they won’t feel that there is a rule specific to this incident and they’ll decide not to suspend Fanning at all.

If they go in that latter direction, however, they’d better get ready for more folks in foil hats to claim the SEC office and the 13 other member institutions it represents are just “taking care” of Nick Saban and ol’ Bama.