I assume his entire body (tooth exempted) went into a full body seizure at impact. I think it would have been impossible to pry that thing from his arms with a crowbar.

Thanks for posting and yes he did. Damn that hit was wrong. I hope Sumlin and Chavis chewed someone's ass about that.

Was it confirmed a tooth? It sure looked like one in slow motion!

WestTexasAg14 said:

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They would have loaded my ass into a body bag after that hit.

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Would have had to have been multiple bags for me as well as a search party to pick up all of the scattered body parts.

coupland boy said:

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Thanks for posting and yes he did. Damn that hit was wrong. I hope Sumlin and Chavis chewed someone's ass about that.

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IMHO, someone like Kirk or Ford probably would have had the awareness and vision to see that guy coming and avoided a direct hit or been able to soften the blow.

I'm not sure Speedy has the natural instincts to stand out at this level - at least not talented enough against Alabama-type defenders.

LabAG93 said:

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But he somehow managed to hold onto the ball after that ridiculous hit. Have to give him credit for that!

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I agree. I saw the replay and my first thought was great job holding onto the ball by Speedy.

Was listening to the Knoxville Sports Radio station on my drive home last night. They were interviewing an SEC replay official (who used to play football for Tennessee). The two hosts were making the point that Alabama should have been penalized 15 yards for a helmet to helmet hit. The official said they have a weekly conference call to discuss any questionable calls.

in the replay i saw something white fly off from his helmet. It also looked as if the face mask was about to break under the pressure of the hit

Not Targeting as he was not defenseless.

But should have been a 15 yard personal foul penalty for helmet to helmet.



Special teams was awful in that game. No return blocking, lousy punts. You could really tell that they had a bunch of 5 star redshirt freshman and sophomores playing on special teams, making the most of their playing time on special teams before they get the chance to compete for starting jobs as Juniors.

ToddyHill said:

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Was listening to the Knoxville Sports Radio station on my drive home last night. They were interviewing an SEC replay official (who used to play football for Tennessee). The two hosts were making the point that Alabama should have been penalized 15 yards for a helmet to helmet hit. The official said they have a weekly conference call to discuss any questionable calls.

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Well that makes it all better then. It all got called when A&M did it to Bama, nary a whistle the other way during far more obvious situations.

SARATOGA said:

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Not Targeting as he was not defenseless.

But should have been a 15 yard personal foul penalty for helmet to helmet.



Special teams was awful in that game. No return blocking, lousy punts. You could really tell that they had a bunch of 5 star redshirt freshman and sophomores playing on special teams, making the most of their playing time on special teams before they get the chance to compete for starting jobs as Juniors.

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Actually if you read the rules, I believe it says that helmet to helmet on a defenseless player is AUTOMATICALLY targeting regardless of severity and circumstance. Helmet to helmet on a player not deemed "defenseless" is a judgement call to be made by officials considering the circumstances of the hit, (severity, whether or not the defender left their feet, intent, etc). If anyone else has a copy of the rules and would care to chime in I would appreciate it. I could be wrong, but I believe this fact is stated in the notes section of the rule regarding the definition of targeting.

Plenty of targeting calls have been made in helmet to helmet collisions wherein the player being targeted was carrying the football, in the middle of a "football move" and deemed able to defend themselves. One was called against us last year I believe.

Looking at the play, it was clear: the defender left their feet, launching their body, full speed, helmet first directly at speedy' helmet. It should have been a targeting call. But the refs' were given an out by being able to claim that speedy was not defenseless. And considering bama had yet to cover the spread, no call was made.

Will someone please confirm if it was actually a tooth?

I thought it was a screw from his facemask.

Real simple -- 2 clauses for the rule. First rule applied to the Speedy scenario -- player does NOT have to be defenseless for that clause to be in effect.

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Rule 9-1-3: Targeting and initiating contact with the crown of the helmet. No player shall target and initiate contact against an opponent with the crown (top) of his helmet. When in question, it is a foul.

Rule 9-1-4: Targeting and initiating contact to head or neck area of a defenseless player. No player shall target and initiate contact to the head or neck area of a defenseless opponent with the helmet, forearm, fist, elbow or shoulder. When in question, it is a foul.

Ragoo said:

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he stood up and walked off the field like a grown ass man. donovan wilson must hit harder than the bama dude.....

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Bama probably teaches their players to stay down and act like they are hurt.

Stops the play, gives more attention to the hit and gives the refs more time to look at the play.

Edit: missed the post right above mine.

Claud said:

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Ragoo said:

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he stood up and walked off the field like a grown ass man. donovan wilson must hit harder than the bama dude.....

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Bama probably teaches their players to stay down and act like they are hurt.

Stops the play, gives more attention to the hit and gives the refs more time to look at the play.

Edit: missed the post right above mine.

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If I were a coach and a player took a hit like that I would coach them to stay down as well. 1 hits like that can cause a neck injury, and even if initially adrenaline makes the player want to pop right back up, moving too violently or soon after a neck injury can make it worse. So stay down to protect the player.

2) if the opposing team hits a player illegally, anything I or my players can do to make sure the officiating catches it is a GOOD thing as it should keep the other team playing more honest in the future.

3) refs are viewing things in real time. If a ref sees a hit like that and the player pops right back up, the ref who is human, and probably didn't really see what happened, will think the hit was legal. If my player stays down the ref has to replay the hit in their head and THINK about what happened and make a judgement call. If the player pops back up the ref even if they are doing their best will often times default to the hit being clean because no one appears hurt.

Now I am not talking about taking a dive or flopping or trying to draw a foul. I am talking only about being cautious and forcing the refs to consider the hit. The rules state that when in doubt the refs should call the penalty. So force them to call what happened or at least get crap if they don't.

Basically like a catcher framing the corner pitch so that the umpire has to think about whether the pitch nicked the corner. Do everything you can within reason and without cheating to help the ref make the right call.

gA_CMAB_FA said:

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IMHO, someone like Kirk or Ford probably would have had the awareness and vision to see that guy coming and avoided a direct hit or been able to soften the blow.

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MJ is known to slow reflexes

Speedy hasn't played anywhere near his abilities - he is as naturally talented as anyone in the SEC including Garrett...the only thing that hit did for me was remind me he wasn't suspended for the game

Come on ppl, it wasn't a tooth, you think a tooth would fly out and be brilliant shiny white down to the root, I could see a tooth being knocked loose on a play like this but it's not just gonna fly out like that piece of whatever did in the slo mo vid

It was clearly targeting with crown of helmet contacting Speedy's head. That's targeting. The Alabama player should have been ejected. Why it wasn't called, with plenty of time to review and obvious distortion of Speedys neck and face makes no sense. If it had been called like it should have been, I don't think the outcome of the game would have changed, but this was a horrible call when it is clearly called often that are less clear and less damaging than Speedy's hit.

Speedy is one tough mofo for getting up the way he did. I hope he didn't sustain any permanent injury of any kind.

PS: the targeting call against A&M later was far less clear IMO. They also called that much faster than the time they took for Speedy's

Speedy's mercurial by nature, but he's also a tough kid. The hit was clearly a textbook example of targeting.

Get a dog! I've been hit many times and I'm just fine.

That hit was so hard that it confused Speedy with respect to where he was injured - he was complaining about his hamstring, which, last I checked, ain't located in the head/neck area. No way he pulled a hamstring on that play, he wasn't running fast enough...

One Tooth Man said:

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Get a dog! I've been hit many times and I'm just fine.

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Username irony.

One Tooth Man said:

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Get a dog! I've been hit many times and I'm just fine.

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I'd like to see any of you guys try to remember what you had been coached after taking that hit.

You the man Speedy.

One Tooth Man said:

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Get a dog! I've been hit many times and I'm just fine.

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so much lolwut in this

> Say what you want about Speedy...

Ok. Cool name