Arkansas and Vanderbilt earned two stirring wins towards top-five groups on Saturday, and in the future later the Southeastern Convention ordered them to pay for the celebration.
Vanderbilt, whose followers stormed the sector after a 40-35 upset of then-No. 1 Alabama, is being fined $100,000 for its first violation of the SEC’s enhanced penalties for subject storming.
Vanderbilt followers not solely stormed the sector however eliminated the goalposts and carried them to downtown Nashville.
Arkansas, in the meantime, will owe extra as a result of it incurred its second violation below the brand new guidelines. The primary was when its followers stormed the court docket following the boys’s basketball group’s win over Duke on Nov. 29, 2023, which incurred the $100,000 fantastic. The second was on Saturday evening when Razorbacks followers stormed the sector following the 19-14 upset of then-No. 4 Tennessee.
The fines will likely be paid to Alabama and Tennessee, respectively, a brand new wrinkle within the penalties adopted on the league’s spring conferences in 2023. Beforehand, colleges had been penalized $50,000 for a primary offense, $100,000 for a second offense and $250,000 for a 3rd offense. Now, if Arkansas had been to commit a 3rd offense, it will owe the college it beat $500,000.
Following the stiffening of the league’s penalties, every convention member was required to submit a court docket or subject administration plan to the convention and a communication plan that daunts followers from coming into the taking part in floor and lays out the penalties for doing so. If a faculty doesn’t incur a penalty for 4 years, its clock for subject storming fines is reset.
“Whereas fines don’t influence the speedy decision-making strategy of followers, they do present an incentive from universities to develop methods,” Sankey mentioned in June 2023.
If all visiting group personnel and sport officers are off the taking part in floor earlier than followers enter the sector, no penalty from the convention will likely be assessed.
The brand new SEC pointers had been presupposed to make the faculties care extra about stopping postgame celebrations from spilling onto the taking part in floor, however to date they don’t seem like working. A bunch of SEC officers and athletic administrators, nervous about security, thought of harsher measures, together with group suspensions and even forfeits, however elected to only ramp up the fantastic construction.
However SEC athletic departments clear thousands and thousands in income annually, and the visible of field-storming affords good publicity.
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman alluded to the approaching fantastic whereas being interviewed on ESPN amid the ocean of followers.
“The AD’s going to be mad, or possibly he gained’t be,” Pittman informed ESPN. “I don’t know, proper now I don’t care.”
(Photograph: Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA At present Community by way of Imagn Photos)
