Of Time and Space and Auburn and Pugh, Ramsey, Ziemba, Rosegreen and Other Things

I'd planned to wait until after the Troy game to bring this up - but if I waited till that time now, my thoughts would be untimely. For most of you this may be ancient history, but I think it's appropriate to bring it up prior to the Auburn game.

I'm talking about 3 incidents involving Auburn players on the field. One happened in 2004, the other two last season. All of them involved actions by Auburn players that were illegal, dangerous as hell, should have been called, and arguably provided the impetus for later NCAA rule changes or "clarifications" designed to better protect players.

The first, in 2004, involved a helmet to helmet hit (spearing) by Aburn's Junior Rosegreen on Georgia receiver Reggie Brown that knocked Brown unconscious. It resulted in a clarification of the spearing rules so there would not be any question in the future that Rosegreen's hit was illegal. You can find a vid of the incident on youtube.

The second involved the infamous chop-block on Dorsey by Chad Ramsey and Lee Ziemba of Auburn last year.

For those who need some clarification, a "cut" block is a hit on an opposing player below the belt and from the side or back. Cut blocks are legal, but are frowned upon by many.

A "chop block," on the other hand, involves two people on the same team blocking a player on the opposing team. One engages the opposing player from the front, above the waist, while the other hits him below the waist from behind or, possibly, from the side. These blocks invariably cause injury and have been illegal for years.

Last year, Dorsey was the recipient of such a block by Ramsey (who cut-blocked him from the right) and Ziemba, who very aggressively smashed Dorsey onto his back on top of Ramsey while Dorsey's legs were pinned under Ramsey. The block injured Dorsey, who was never really the same during the rest of the 2007 regular season, and could have ended his football career.

I have watched the clips of that play many times. The Auburn fans argue that the block was unintentional and that one or the other of Auburn's players "missed" an audible calling for either cut-blocks from Auburn's interior o-line or for more common standing pass-blocks. Looking at the tapes, I have noticed that the Auburn lineman to Ramsey's left also executed a cut-block. So, to my mind, I'm more inclined than I was before to believe Ramsey was not at fault.

The same cannot be said of my thoughts about Ziemba. First, looking at the tape, if Ziemba "missed" the audible, his actions could not have been better designed to hurt Dorsey. Anyone who wants to look at the clips can find them on youtube. Second, some of you may recall that Ziemba, after getting beaten consistently during this year's spring drills by one of Auburn's defensive linemen, went postal on the guy and (as I recall) put him in the hospital, at least briefly. The chop block in question was done in a similar circumstance - on the previous play, Dorsey had made Auburn's offensive line look like a gaggle of ineffective fools while sacking Auburn's quarterback.

Combining all these factors together, I am still of the belief that the chop block on Dorsey was intentional, but it was Ziemba who was trying to hurt Dorsey.

Finally, Pugh was called for chop-blocking an opposing Clemson lineman in Auburn's bowl game at the end of the 2007 season.

The chop-block rules were modified after the end of the season to make it clear that any chop block is illegal and should result in a penalty. My personal thought is it should result in the ejection of the players involved.

Why do I bring this up? Because Ziemba, Ramsey and Pugh will all be there, on Auburn's line, in two weeks. I really hope that no LSU player tries to retaliate, but I also think some serious investigation should occur if any of LSU's linemen wind up getting cheap-shotted and injured in that game.

And frankly, I also bring it up because that block on Dorsey still pisses me off, and now's the perfect time to vent about it.

All the best,
X

 

Ramsey will not be playing fwiw.

 

Really? Why? I hadn't heard this. Is he hurt? Info, please? ldskule:

 

He is out for the year with a back injury.

 

Fully agree with Red. And I think it is fair game when Auburn fans show up on this site with their pictures. It happens at every school and had Dorsey not been involved it wouldn't have been a huge deal. Rarely is it on purpose.

 

BlackJack

 

I think Red is partially right, and give the teaching(coach) all of the blame. Being poorly coached or undisciplined isn't the problem in my opinion. It's next to impossible to teach it to pro's much less to a collection of college players. Getting the timing and execution down is next to impossible as far as not cut blocking and chop blocking is concerned and it's a strategy doomed for controversy. Therefore trying to teach it is the problem. The players who embrace it though can be dangerous. I hope none of these guys are really like that.

Tubberville has tried to emulate the Denver Broncos due to the kind of players he likes to recruit, and AU will create the same kind of controversy as the Broncos. It's just a shame the refs don't enforce the rules correctly on either one of them and throw players out of the game and call the appropriate penalties.