Question about legal fan practices (LSU phone gimmick on Saturday)

Snuffy Smith said:

The cowbells are actually an exemption that the SEC has made to the no noisemakers policy.

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I am pretty irritated by the special exemptions the SEC gives out, since they are by nature unfair. Miss. State gets to have cowbells, and why does no one mention that LSU always gets to play Alabama at night during home games? We know the ordinary game time for CBS games, but we also know LSU wants to play that game at night.

Redwood Forrest said:

Call me simplistic but I don't see any difference in lights than the home crowd making so much noise it interferes with the visiting team hearing the signal. We seem to think that is fair, so why not other disruptive things?

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I do. First, once upon a time there could be a penalty for home teams making too much noise. Eventually though, they figured out that fans enjoyed cheering and being part of the game so they allowed that. The artificial noisemaker rule is a good one, and should be completely enforced by the way (I even saw idiot Miss. State fans bringing in bottles full of coins at Alabama). If you've ever been in a stadium full of people blowing whistles, you'll understand the artificial noisemaker rule. Anyway, by limiting things to what a human being has the capacity to do, you have a reasonable limitation on how far they can go. If you don't limit that, what can happen? As has been mentioned you can have strobe lights, and laser pointers, and things of that nature.

No, fans shouldn't be allowed to do anything conceivable to disrupt the opposing team, heck if they could why not just pepper spray the opponents or something?

KrAzY3 said:

and why does no one mention that LSU always gets to play Alabama at night during home games? We know the ordinary game time for CBS games, but we also know LSU wants to play that game at night.

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They have created something special with their fans with respect their night games, but they don't make that call - the television contracts dictate the time of that game. Let the game get boring and see how quickly it drops to a day game.

81usaf92 said:

I was at the game on Saturday, and it had a blast. But I don't know if you could tell watching the broadcast, but at a certain point during the 3rd quarter LSU fans in unison turned on their flashlights when Bama had the ball. I was wondering if that was legal since the SEC makes a huge deal about piping music during a play, cowbells outside the confines of MSU, and just about everything else.

Idk if it had a real effect on the game, but it was sure as heck bright due to the number of phones lit up.

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Awbern uses the goobertron to try and mess up opponents FG and XP attempts. If that is legal, anything is... :cool2:

TiderJ said:

Verne and Gary mentioned it but CBS never showed it IIRC. This is on the fringe of being an unfair thing but I could not tell if it effected us any.

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You could see it in the background, but it didn't look all that bright to me... :cool2:

KrAzY3 said:

No, fans shouldn't be allowed to do anything conceivable to disrupt the opposing team, heck if they could why not just pepper spray the opponents or something?

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I'd say that fans shouldn't be allowed to use any external or 3rd party object to distract a team. Voices and hands only.
Cowbells, cellphones, whistles, horns, jumbotrons, etc. should be prohibited. That goes for our fans as well - though we don't need as much help as other teams these days.

B1GTide said:

They have created something special with their fans with respect their night games, but they don't make that call - the television contracts dictate the time of that game. Let the game get boring and see how quickly it drops to a day game.

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hell, after the last few years, they are probably begging for that 11am sec network spot for the next baton rouge game

TIDE-HSV said:

I think, with the cowbells, the conference realized that a prohibition could never be enforced and basically gave up and tried just to limit it...

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I think you are right. The same would go with cell phones. One thing to say "These things are prohibited!" It's another to enforce it. Cowbells you could theoretically take away but phones - not so much. As a fan being in the stands my own cowbells would drive me insane - plus their team is still awful so why bother.

B1GTide said:

How to get it banned, or get the ban enforced? Start doing it at Alabama. :wink:

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It's one of those debates where at first you roll your eyes, but the more you think the more you can't just dismiss it. Especially on a message board full of lawyers! Saban encourages us all the time to come and yell and affect the other QB. You shouldn't have artificial noisemakers during the play and it's barely enforced (would be very easy if they'd just throw a flag once and hit MSU for 15 yards, but they never do). There is no rule or precedent about photons. Not only do our cellphone LEDs put out a ton of light, we could all go buy a flashlight with 10 of them for $10. Imagine 10,000 of those turning on as the kicker approaches the FG try!

For that matter, forget 'artificial lightmakers'. What if 5,000 ladies in Death Valley reached in their purses and pulled out a mirror at the right time? They could with 90% probability prevent a FG or pass I think. Good thing they always want to play us at night.

Maybe someone knows a rule against mirrors at least that I'm not familiar with.

TIDE-HSV said:

I think, with the cowbells, the conference realized that a prohibition could never be enforced and basically gave up and tried just to limit it...

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I think this is probably right. And, to be fair to the MSU fans, they do a good job of not ringing them before the snap. Which is pretty much the only condition of allowing the cowbells.

B1GTide said:

They have created something special with their fans with respect their night games, but they don't make that call - the television contracts dictate the time of that game. Let the game get boring and see how quickly it drops to a day game.

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From what I understand, CBS really only has claim to the 2:30 slot and it entails using a special exemption to get the night game. I'd go one step further and say I recall one year in which they had to work out some sort of swap with ESPN to do that. There's no doubt in my mind that LSU wanting to play the game at night is a big part of the reason that the network is basically going against protocol to do it.

Intl.Aperture said:

I'd say that fans shouldn't be allowed to use any external or 3rd party object to distract a team. Voices and hands only.
Cowbells, cellphones, whistles, horns, jumbotrons, etc. should be prohibited. That goes for our fans as well - though we don't need as much help as other teams these days.

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I'd tend to agree. Otherwise why not just activate a bunch of those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men right behind the goal post every time your opponent tries to kick.

KrAzY3 said:

From what I understand, CBS really only has claim to the 2:30 slot and it entails using a special exemption to get the night game. I'd go one step further and say I recall one year in which they had to work out some sort of swap with ESPN to do that. There's no doubt in my mind that LSU wanting to play the game at night is a big part of the reason that the network is basically going against protocol to do it.

I'd tend to agree. Otherwise why not just activate a bunch of those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men right behind the goal post every time your opponent tries to kick.

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2011, we played UF in primetime, which used up their one allotted primetime game. They had to work out a deal with ESPN so CBS could have the Bama/LSU game in primetime as well.