I remember asking a question in GQ last year about why Pro football players were identified by number in penalty situations, but college players were not so identified.
That has changed. This year, Division 1-A college football players will be identified by number in penalty situations.
Some coaches (like Kirk Ferentz, from Iowa) oppose it. “I don’t think the players need that kind of recognition. This isn’t the NFL. They’re not being paid”
Other coaches (like Lloyd Carr of Michigan) see it as a natural evolution of the college game.
I’m not crazy about it. I tend to think that they don’t need their mistakes to be announced to the crowd. Let their coaches beat 'em on the sideline or at practice. Besides, 9 times out of 10 the crowd knows who did it anyway.
I think it’s a welcome change. The old just-tell-the-coach way was quaint, but (IMO) outdated and pointless.
College basketball players have been dealing with having their fouls announced (and tallied on the scoreboard!) for decades, and no one seems to have had a problem with that.
It’s true that, most of the time, the player who commits the penalty is pretty clear. It’s for precisely those cases in which it is not, though, that this change really helps out the television audience in particular. Crucial defensive holding penalties which no one on the TV broadcast can find are frustrating for me, the viewer.
