That was pathetic. I'll be rooting against NU for the rest of the season. I hope we beat the hell out of them next year.

B.A. Bearacus;842165144 said:

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Fitz:"If anybody were to question the integrity of myself, our program or our players, I question theirs."

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BA, I think I know what you think and I think I think the same.

Hey 'Fitz' - I'll question it, right here. I saw what your team did last night. You know nothing about me, douchebag.

I just lost tons of respect for Northwestern yesterday. Oh wait, did someone else just get injured on the flight home to Evanston?? Maybe 6 or 7 guys?

OldenBear;842165324 said:

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BA, I think I know what you think and I think I think the same.

Hey 'Fitz' - I'll question it, right here. I saw what your team did last night. You know nothing about me, douchebag.

I just lost tons of respect for Northwestern yesterday. Oh wait, did someone else just get injured on the flight home to Evanston?? Maybe 6 or 7 guys?

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No injuries on the flight... nothing to gain. If they had flown Southwest, an injury might have moved the to the front of the line....

These complaints are pretty weak. The first time I saw fake injuries was when our team did it against Oregon. Without a rule change-and what that would be I can't say-this will keep happening.

If a really good team has this much trouble with Cal, this will be a terrific season to see from the stands or from the tv.

simple solution is that if you're "injured" you sit out a full quarter for evaluation. So if there's 8min left in the 3rd, you can come back when there's 8min left in the 4th. If there's 8min left in the 4th, you sit out the rest of the game. We just can't take any chances with the lasting of effects of injuries these days.

1979bear;842165344 said:

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These complaints are pretty weak. The first time I saw fake injuries was when our team did it against Oregon. Without a rule change-and what that would be I can't say-this will keep happening.

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I was thinking the same thing. This could become part of the game if a decisive stand isn't taken. The radio guys compared it to European soccer.

Oh, by the way, it seems like there were quite a few families with children on my side of the stadium who were leaving early because the game went on so long (thanks in part to the injury-faking). For God's sake, Northwestern, think about the children.

I recognize that it's difficult to have a clear perspective on anything around sports because of all the inherited biases that go into all of this. Very clear that Northwestern was faking injuries.
Until there is a rule change (ie that a player has to miss a series or 2 if he needs assistance getting off the field) nothing will happen. And I guarantee that Dykes will get this time and time again. Although I understand it, Dykes needs to stop whining around this ASAP, especially during the game, as it will negatively impact his team.
Love that Dykes punked Fitzgerald after the game. And Fitz is a punk. I would imagine an institution like Northwestern will force him to take a little more responsibility around this than merely questioning the integrity of anyone that questions his (what a complete A-hole.) Cal deserved to be called to task a couple years ago, and Northwestern deserves it this year. Hopefully more will come of this.
Dykes needs to get a handle on his emotions around this. I do enjoy, however, that we now have a coach that seems alive on the sideline, and not someone who is constantly paralyzed by his own anxieties.
A good start, as disappointing as the final score was.

The NCAA needs to review and step in immediately before this becomes a travesty and a seriously hurt player gets booed, which is deplorable.

I would suggest the following:

1. After a second "injury" in any offensive series, the player that is injured cannot return in that series. Several NU players re-entered within a play or two of their injuries.

2. After a third "injury" in an offensive series, that player cannot re-enter until the next quarter and the team takes a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty. And 15 yard penalties thereafter.

StillABear;842165384 said:

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The NCAA needs to review and step in immediately before this becomes a travesty and a seriously hurt player gets booed, which is deplorable.

I would suggest the following:

1. After a second "injury" in any offensive series, the player that is injured cannot return in that series. Several NU players re-entered within a play or two of their injuries.

2. After a third "injury" in an offensive series, that player cannot re-enter until the next quarter and the team takes a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty. And 15 yard penalties thereafter.

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My suggestion is a bit different.

If a player is removed from the game due to injury, returns and is then injured again, he is immediately ejected, the team is penalized 15 yards, and the player cannot play for the next 2 games.

Eliminate the fake injuries by inserting a real and definite penalty that doesn't require any judgement. Allow the refs to assume that all injuries are real, but then create a penalty for sending a player back to get him injured 2 times in the same game. IF you "fake" an injury, a real injury then becomes a 2 game suspension. Bets on how many coaches would be willing to risk that?

Aggie Bear;842165370 said:

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I recognize that it's difficult to have a clear perspective on anything around sports because of all the inherited biases that go into all of this. Very clear that Northwestern was faking injuries.
Until there is a rule change (ie that a player has to miss a series or 2 if he needs assistance getting off the field) nothing will happen. And I guarantee that Dykes will get this time and time again. Although I understand it, Dykes needs to stop whining around this ASAP, especially during the game, as it will negatively impact his team.
Love that Dykes punked Fitzgerald after the game. And Fitz is a punk. I would imagine an institution like Northwestern will force him to take a little more responsibility around this than merely questioning the integrity of anyone that questions his (what a complete A-hole.) Cal deserved to be called to task a couple years ago, and Northwestern deserves it this year. Hopefully more will come of this.
Dykes needs to get a handle on his emotions around this. I do enjoy, however, that we now have a coach that seems alive on the sideline, and not someone who is constantly paralyzed by his own anxieties.
A good start, as disappointing as the final score was.

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Watch the press conference linked above. He handled it perfectly. Looks like he mentioned it to Fitz in handshake without punching him. Didn't get a penalty from refs from going out on field and dragging NW weenies off the pitch.

So, 3 ways he handled it better than I would have.

We need to come up with a good chant when we assume a player is faking it. How about, as someone else referred to it: MENSTRUAL CRAMPS!


(Not intended to offend people who actually do get mentrual cramps)

:p

I wish we would not "boo" injuries. Real or not. I hope as fans we can show a grace and sports-mindedness to stay above the fray. While it is douchey/toshy to fake an injury, I find it equally reprehensible to boo a player who may be injured. These are student-athletes out there and they are playing a devastating collision sport and putting their bodies on the line out there.

That being said a great player with respect for the game will speak up and apologize to Cal and the NCAA.

I boo'd bc he certainly wasnt injured

I plan to attend the rematch in Evanston. I'll be interested to see how that plays out next year.

bearsandgiants;842165349 said:

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simple solution is that if you're "injured" you sit out a full quarter for evaluation. So if there's 8min left in the 3rd, you can come back when there's 8min left in the 4th. If there's 8min left in the 4th, you sit out the rest of the game. We just can't take any chances with the lasting of effects of injuries these days.

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There are simply too many legitimate injuries (e.g. getting hit in the gut and losing your wind, or a cramp) for this to be realistic.

Maybe something like if you have more than X injuries that stop the clock in a drive you are forced to burn an injury timeout.

The thing that steamed me the most was they basically used this instead of timeouts. What is to prevent a team from just faking an injury whenever they want a timeout?

NJCalFan;842165401 said:

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I wish we would not "boo" injuries. Real or not. I hope as fans we can show a grace and sports-mindedness to stay above the fray. While it is douchey/toshy to fake an injury, I find it equally reprehensible to boo a player who may be injured. These are student-athletes out there and they are playing a devastating collision sport and putting their bodies on the line out there.

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I was thinking the same thing when it happened. Even if it were obvious the NU clown was faking, we're talking about next time, not last time. It's possible, maybe even likely, that this could happen a LOT in our games this season. Some of these instances won't be so obvious. (And yeah, every fan thinks their perception is 100% accurate because they know so much about football, but....you really don't, you know?)

It could get really ugly and make us look like villains. I hope someone stops all the diving somehow before it leads to this.

I take your point, but here is the problem I see with that. In much of the country on GameDay 1, it's 90+ for much, if not all of the game. By the 3Q, it's not uncommon to see players cramp up, and generally you see some of it on both sides. Clearly that's not the case here; it isn't as if NW travelled down to Miami or Houston. A better solution might be that if a player is removed from the game due to injury, returns and is then injured again, he's directed to the locker room for examination and treatment, and can't return for 15 minutes of game time. If the NCAA looks at film afterward, and/or gets other evidence of a pattern of faking injuries, all of the "injured" are benched for 3 games, and the program is docked two schollies for the following season.

If they are that injured that they can't get up, the should go out for more time (4 plays, 1 series, 2 mins, etc). It's too easy to go out for 1 play and then come back in.

JSC 76;842165317 said:

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Kudos to the stadium PA announcer, who inserted verbal air quotes in his call of the last injury: "the "injured" Wildcat is ..."

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Yeah, that was hilarious.

I think all they would have to do is increase the penalty from a one-play sit out, to 3 or 4 plays and that would be enough of a deterrent.

I think if a coach has a complaint that he thinks is legitimate he takes it to the NCAA for a review where players and coaches are questioned. But I think when you are on the field that you give the team and coaches the benefit of the doubt.

But I strongly advise us as Cal fans to keep it "old school" and politely clap for the (pause) injured (pause) player.

I hope our fan base can be more classy than Oregunn's.

We have no room to talk. We started it. I cannot blame NU. Smart strategy IMO.

CalBearsWinNC;842165465 said:

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We have no room to talk. We started it. I cannot blame NU. Smart strategy IMO.

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Yep. Our medicine tastes yucky, but them's the breaks.

With that said, it's FANTASTIC to know that our team is so well conditioned. When is the last time we could say that?

halobear;842165470 said:

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yep. Our medicine tastes yucky, but them's the breaks.

With that said, it's fantastic to know that our team is so well conditioned. When is the last time we could say that?

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2004?

Montage of fake injuries here.

From Larry Brown Sports:

"In the video [above], you can see Northwestern players go down with supposed injuries on four occasions. In one Cal drive with around three minutes left in the third quarter, Northwestern went down in three of four consecutive plays (all seen in the video). First it was No. 92 Will Hampton. Two plays later No. 44 Chi Chi Ariguzo went down. On the next play, Damien Proby went down. In a 4th-quarter drive, Hampton went down again with a supposed injury.

As was mentioned in the video, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit said during the week that teams were being taught in practice how to fake injuries to slow down fast-paced offenses. Nick Saban and Bret Bielema were among the coaches who spoke out this offseason against the hurry-up offenses. And you want to know the irony of the situation for Cal? Three years ago they were faking injuries to slow down Oregon. My how things change."

Before game:


After game:

CalBearsWinNC;842165465 said:

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We have no room to talk. We started it. I cannot blame NU. Smart strategy IMO.

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Naw, teams did it to Oregon before we did, its just our fake was the most obvious

I'd like to see Larry Scott make an issue of this on our behalf, but I doubt that he will. He seemed to be keen on making an example out of us when we did this a couple of times in that Oregon debacle, let's see if he comes to our defense on behalf of the conference. I think that issue would have gone away if he hadn't pushed Tedford to throw Tosh under the bus and apologize publicly. Which I don't necessarily have a problem with if it is reciprocal.

However, I doubt he will do anything. I get the impression he cares about the current "high profile" teams in the conference and doesn't want to make waves with the rest of us.

Bear_Territory;842165502 said:

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Naw, teams did it to Oregon before we did, its just our fake was the most obvious

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And we still cannot complain. If we were innocent, we could talk but we're not.

it's part of the game, and good teams overcome this.

fans need to be careful too; we better not start booing every single "injury" and boo someone who is actually hurt.

Nothing...

B.A. Bearacus;842165144 said:

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Drastic difference of opinion below. I know what I believe.

Dykes: "it was just unusual, seemed like every time we had a first down, they had an injury."

Fitz:"If anybody were to question the integrity of myself, our program or our players, I question theirs."

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To quote Game of Thrones, we're not questioning your integrity, Fitz, we're simply denying its existence.

1979bear;842165344 said:

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These complaints are pretty weak. The first time I saw fake injuries was when our team did it against Oregon. Without a rule change-and what that would be I can't say-this will keep happening.

If a really good team has this much trouble with Cal, this will be a terrific season to see from the stands or from the tv.

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CalBearsWinNC;842165465 said:

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We have no room to talk. We started it. I cannot blame NU. Smart strategy IMO.

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Agreed. It's also just really hard to get excited about this. I don't think it had any impact on the game and to be honest I didn't think we were running plays very quickly. Not once did we go into the much ballyhooed "attack mode." If anything, the fake injuries extended the game by giving us additional time outs.

The real injury problem once again is with our team - we lost a number of defensive players in this game to injury and if we can't keep those guys healthy we'll be seeing a lot more high scoring games.

B.A. Bearacus;842165491 said:

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Montage of fake injuries here.

From Larry Brown Sports:

"In the video [above], you can see Northwestern players go down with supposed injuries on four occasions. In one Cal drive with around three minutes left in the third quarter, Northwestern went down in three of four consecutive plays (all seen in the video). First it was No. 92 Will Hampton. Two plays later No. 44 Chi Chi Ariguzo went down. On the next play, Damien Proby went down. In a 4th-quarter drive, Hampton went down again with a supposed injury.

As was mentioned in the video, ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit said during the week that teams were being taught in practice how to fake injuries to slow down fast-paced offenses. Nick Saban and Bret Bielema were among the coaches who spoke out this offseason against the hurry-up offenses. And you want to know the irony of the situation for Cal? Three years ago they were faking injuries to slow down Oregon. My how things change."

Before game:


After game:

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Fitzgerald looks like a Neanderthal.

One minor rule adjustment would be to disallow staff coming on the field to give the other players water, or letting the players run to the sideline while the injured player is being treated.

mvargus;842165389 said:

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My suggestion is a bit different.

If a player is removed from the game due to injury, returns and is then injured again, he is immediately ejected, the team is penalized 15 yards, and the player cannot play for the next 2 games.

Eliminate the fake injuries by inserting a real and definite penalty that doesn't require any judgement. Allow the refs to assume that all injuries are real, but then create a penalty for sending a player back to get him injured 2 times in the same game. IF you "fake" an injury, a real injury then becomes a 2 game suspension. Bets on how many coaches would be willing to risk that?

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That's dumb for a few reasons.

First, they can still fake 80 injuries.