A Hockey Game Broke Out in Miami Last Night

Read this and see what I mean.

I watched footage of the Miami-Florida International game last night and wasn't surprised to see that 8 FIU players were kicked out of the contest after a donneybrook ensued at the end of an extra-point conversion or that 5 Miami players were ejected. What did surprise me was that the Miami player wielding the helmet (and, by the way, why would anyone wander into a fight among huge football players and NOT have his helmet on?) and the Miami player who was trying out his stomping techniques were not among those ejected. My guess is that the ACC commissioner and the NCAA will weigh in and make those two student-athletes miss several games and contemplate how best to handle their anger.

It was an awful display.

It also makes you wonder about the future of Miami football coach, Larry Coker, about whom I blogged earlier this season when he issued a statement discouraging his players from owning guns. Makes you wonder whether Coach Coker has control of his own team.

Okay, boys can be boys and bad things can happen (if you think I buy those arguments, you're dead wrong), but I recall Michael Irvin's comments a couple of years ago after the awful incident involving several Indiana Pacers' players who went into the stands in Detroit and battled fans. When one of his co-commentators on an ESPN show said that fans can say terrible things, Irvin replied: "How can you let anyone have that much power over you to cause yourself to do something so stupid?" Or something to that effect.

It was a great point.

I don't know who started it and who thought who was defending whom, but stomping and helmet-swinging have no part of a college football game. Nor do rugby scrums where players are simply teeing off on one another. It was an embarrassing moment for college football last night, and perhaps those with power over their own teams will mete out a punishment that serves as a significant deterrent for years to come.

That it involved Miami is significant too, and the episode reminds me of that conversation I had with my dad about the high school teacher who kept on missing time because she had four car accidents over a two-year period.

"Son, if you have one accident, it's probably an accident. If you have four accidents over that period of time, you probably have a driving problem."

Miami might have that type of problem. The recruitment of Willie Williams, players defending themselves with guns, and now this.

And it says here that Larry Coker, who was on the ropes, doesn't coach at Miami after this year.