Twistity Sports Exclusive: UNSPORTSMANLIKE CONDUCT

 
The reason Florida State schedules a football game with The Citadel is simple. FSU gets a win and The Citadel gets paid.

FSU is the defending national champion (FBS). The Citadel plays at the lower FCS level (and don’t you wish we could just call them Division 1 and 1-AA again). It’s almost not sportsmanlike to line up these smaller schools and beat them by ridiculous scores, but everyone does it (or tries to). The small school gets a huge payday that helps sustain the program – sort of like taking one for the team. The big school wins, gets to play backups, feels good about a preposterous victory margin.

FSU won on Saturday night but the 37-12 victory was costly … for both schools.

The Citadel runs a triple-option offense, and that calls for a particular style of blocking to make the running game work. Cut blocking involves a lot of shots by the offensive line to the knees of the defenders. It has been described as shoving a coffee table into the knees of the defensive player. Three FSU defensive tackles were hurt in the game. Now FSU coach Jimbo Fisher says he won’t schedule cut-blocking teams any longer.

Worse, The Citadel suspended guard Victor Hill indefinitely after he wrote on Facebook on Sunday night that the Bulldogs’ line was “deliberately going for the knees” against FSU. On Facebook? Why not admit it to an elevator video camera? But Hill wasn’t suspended for going after anyone’s knees. Coach Mike Houston said it was for making “inappropriate comments” on social media.

As always, there’s so much wrong here we could write a book instead of a blog. The big, bad schools ought not engage in mismatches. Cut blocking should be banned, though most coaches would say there would be no running game without it. And no one should hint at trying to deliberately trying to cause injuries. The game is rough enough without it.
 
Today’s question: What’s your opinion of what happened? Should “guarantee games” be done away with?
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .