“Act like you’ve been there before.”
It’s what’s always said after a field rush takes place. Good luck telling that to the people on the field.
Rushing the field is a stupid and fun tradition that often involves very little thought on the part of the field rushers. It’s an experience. Your team wins, you release the passion and tenseness you’d been holding all game, and now you get to celebrate what is usually a historical win.
Despite its emotional origin, people try to reduce rushing the field to a science of sorts. They argue about it on a rhetorical basis. What exactly makes a game worthy of rushing the field?
People say you have to be the underdog. It has to be a game with significance, one that is decisive in a national or conference championship race. It should be against a rival. It should come down to the wire. It should occur at your home stadium.
LSU’s game against the University of Mississippi this past weekend seemed to satisfy most of these requirements. The two schools are rivals as the flagship universities from neighboring states. Ole Miss was ranked No. 7 in the country and undefeated with one of the best offenses in the nation, facing an unranked Tiger team. LSU orchestrated an incredible comeback with a 42-3 run to close the game after a 3-17 deficit. Although it lacked a dramatic ending, the result of the game had national significance. LSU’s win put it firmly back into the race for the SEC West crown and back into the top 25 rankings.
Some critics point to the fact that LSU was actually favored to win the game by the betting odds, so the field rushing wasn’t really warranted. However, this stance has a narrow definition of an underdog. Sure, the money said LSU would win, but wasn’t the team overcoming something in another sense? The past two years of uninspiring football, of being counted out and a new coach whose ability and fit with the program has been repeatedly questioned would all say so.
There’s a deeper consideration than just the quality and circumstances of the game, though: Pride.
For some, rushing the field is an admission that you didn’t expect to win and that your program is inferior. Alabama and Florida have notably never rushed the field, claiming that winning is simply expected, and that is embarrassing for a team to celebrate as if winning isn’t typical.
Some made this point in relation to Ole Miss specifically. Although Ole Miss and LSU are rivals, the Rebels have won only six of the teams’ 23 matchups since 2000 and haven’t won in Death Valley since 2008. Is a home win against Ole Miss really anything out of the ordinary?
LSU fans at least showed a certain awareness of this when they rushed the field. As many people have noted, it was more of a delayed, partial field rush than an all-out storm. Nothing particularly crazy happened. No goalposts were torn down.
Still, it isn’t practical to assign reasoning to a decision to rush the field. It isn’t something the fans deeply contemplate. It’s a feeling of the moment, and it’s impossible to break down what circumstances call for such a feeling.
So why do we seek to make sense out of something that’s, by its nature, nonsensical? What’s the big deal about rushing the field?
Well, the big deal is the consequences that come with it. The offending university gets slapped with a huge fine. LSU received a $250,000 penalty following the field rush this past weekend.
The SEC’s policy says, “for the safety of participants and spectators alike, at no time before, during or after a contest shall spectators be permitted to enter the competition area. It is the responsibility of each member institution to implement procedures to ensure compliance with this policy.”
The SEC’s penalties for violating the rule escalate from $50,000 for the first field rushing offense, $100,000 for the second, and $250,000 for the third and each after that, given that each successive offense was within five years of the last one. The thinking is that if you’re going to blow $250,000, it better be for a good game.
There’s also always the potential for a problem whenever fans and the team meet. The players’ and coaches’ safety is at risk when they’re swallowed by a huge crowd of unpredictable fans.
Fans can be a danger to themselves, too. Whenever fans uproot the goalposts, as they often do after rushing the field, bad things can happen. There have been numerous injuries related to tearing down the goalposts and even a death. It’s certainly important for a fan to be careful even as they’re getting wild.
When Brian Kelly was asked in a press conference about the field rushing after LSU’s win, he seemed to straddle the fence on the issue.
“I didn’t expect it. I was doing an interview, and the state police grabbed me and said, ‘we gotta go,’ and I was like, ‘I didn’t think the interview was that bad.’”
In his answer, Kelly showed a good-natured twinkle of defiance, while also acknowledging that he wasn’t quite sure the win called for such a celebration. All in all, though, he appreciated the enthusiasm and said he hoped to generate more big wins, more moments worthy of a reaction as visceral as field rushing.
The indifference exhibited by Kelly might be seen as a model for all of us. Who cares when it’s appropriate to rush the field according to some arbitrary standard? As long as it’s done safely, we all might be better served to adopt a different attitude toward field rushing.
It’s sports. Get crazy.
