I watch college football because it’s tough, tough, exciting and fun. The parity in college football today means that no team is safe from being upset on any given game day. I don’t watch college football because it’s beyond vicious.

After watching Washington quarterback Jake Locker shoot helmet to helmet against the Oregon State Beavers on Saturday (10-11-07), my emotions ran the gamut from concern to anger to outrage to action.

No penalty was even imposed for the flagrant shot. Not only should a penalty for unnecessary roughness or unsportsmanlike conduct have been called, but the offending player should have been sent off immediately.

This type of illegal hitting is not tolerated in professional football because the player is defenseless when hit. Why it is even tolerated and celebrated in college football is beyond me.

I don’t care if the hit was considered unintentional or intentional. Does not matter. That blatant blow could have cost Jake Locker his career, could have crippled him for life, or even killed him if he broke his neck.

This kind of barbaric tackling isn’t so much football as it is controlled and intentional chaos. It wasn’t that long ago that some coaches gave rewards for these kinds of hits, especially when the opposing team’s star player was carried off the field on a stretcher.

Oregon State players have developed a reputation for extreme play. In this particular game, won by the Beavers 29-23, the umpires seemed to have lost control of the game as more taunting, shoving, and shoving resulted in 3 more Beavers and 1 Husky being ejected from the game.

I take no comfort in the fact that the Beaver player who delivered the wild hit apparently apologized and prayed for Locker later. It might have allowed the player in question to shake off any guilt over the hit, but any amount of prayer wouldn’t have helped one iota had Locker been paralyzed or killed as a result of the hit.

These blatant hull-to-hull strikes have got to stop. Period. Don’t waste your precious time trying to convince me that these knocks are inadvertent. Nine out of 10 players don’t even try to tackle players anymore. They throw their bodies at them hoping to knock them down.

Tackling may be taught in spring training, but it’s rarely practiced on the field anymore. Why do you think we are getting scores like 74-62 and 73-68 (these are actual scores from real games)? The defenders are using their bodies as missiles to shoot people down.

Instead of secretly rewarding players for helmet-to-helmet shots, coaches should bench players who use the tactic to take down players. Even if the rules committees don’t allow the tactic, coaches have to implement and enforce the rule to end it. Some trainers only seem to care if their player is the one taking a ferocious helmet-to-helmet attack.

There have already been enough tragic career-ending injuries in football at every level when playing fair without escalating the sport into chaos with blatant and deliberate hoof-to-hoof strikes.

Please don’t give me this hoof-to-hoof inadvertent hit bullshit. A player can head the runner’s abdomen or legs just as easily as the head if that’s how he wants to tackle someone.

When was the last time you saw a running back pass the line of scrimmage in the open on your 30-yard line and then run head-down 70 yards toward the end zone? When was the last time he saw a receiver catch the ball at his 30-yard line and head down 70 yards for a touchdown?

When you do a helmet-to-helmet strike, you have to instantly calculate the coordinates, lower your head to projectile position, and launch yourself at your target. No accidental hull to hull bumps.

Later that night, I watched on a football recap show that Hawaii’s standout quarterback, Colt Brennen, was on the receiving end of a cruel helmet vs. helmet. I’m sure the intention was to mutilate Brennen so he couldn’t stand up. Like Locker, Brennen could have been instantly paralyzed or even killed by the action.

How stupid does it seem that a college sport is potentially killing its players? The NCAA needs to get their feet off the counter, stop counting how much money their empire makes, and address this issue with authority. The NCAA has no problem being a big hassle on small things, how about addressing the bigger issue of player safety?

If the NCAA ever had to open their books as a nonprofit corporation and clarify how much money they’re making for themselves, their faces would be redder than the sea of ​​red among Nebraska fans at a Cornhusker football game.

It almost goes without saying that I was disappointed that Washington lost its road game to Oregon State, missed its chance in a bowl game, and is now facing its fourth straight losing season.

The unnecessary and brazen helmet-to-helmet shot on Jake Locker only added to Washington’s fight to change his show.

Instead of asking for the head of Coach Ty Willingham and the heads of his Washington coaching staff, how about saving the head of Locker and the heads of all the other players who have suffered unnecessarily from a blatant and inordinate helmet-to-helmet hit?

Copyright © 2007 Ed Bagley