AUSTIN DRAWS SCRUTINY AGAIN
Tiger-Cats’ head coach should be suspended
Hamilton Tiger-Cats GM and head coach Kent Austin is under fire for doing what he often does, and that would be blowing his top.
Austin slapped the hand of an official in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s loss to the Roughriders, and there is absolutely no way he can get out of this one without a suspension.
If CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge is going to suspend Duron Carter for running into a coach who was on the field — and also put a shoulder into him at the same time — then there’s no way Austin should escape this without watching this weekend’s game from the press box.
If not, it’s open season on officials. There’s no way the commissioner can send that message. There just isn’t.
However, Dan Ralphs of The Canadian Press reported Tuesday that Austin isn’t expecting to be fined or suspended.
“No, why should I be concerned about that?” Austin told reporters when asked if he expected to be disciplined for the incident. “Anybody that watches it knows it was completely accidental and unintentional and I got penalized for it. If there’s anything intentional about it or aggressive about it they would’ve given a 25-yard penalty and kicked me out at the time in the game. It’s said and done.”
The CFL rulebook provides two penalties against players for physical contact of an official: a 10-yard objectionable conduct call or an automatic disqualification and 25-yard penalty. There’s no refer- ence to perspective punishment for coaches.
SERIOUSLY?
Since we’re calling for Austin to be suspended, then we have to address the absolutely ridiculous penalty call that led to his furiousness.
One of the officials threw a flag because Ticats centre Mike Filer moved the ball ahead a few inches when putting his hand on the ball on a crucial third-and-one play.
That’s when the expression “let the players decide it” should have been enforced. Still, it didn’t give Austin the right to smack the official.
ORDER RESTORED
The most interesting news of the last week was the announcement that interim Alouettes head coach Jacques Chapdelaine will be calling the offensive plays for the Alouettes — and not Anthony Calvillo. Everyone said Calvillo’s taking control of the offence was too much, too soon for the league’s career passing yards leader, and this move validates that to a degree. No one, not even the league’s career passing yards leader, should roll right into an OC position, which is what the Alouettes essentially did with Calvillo.
Chapdelaine piled up the yardage last year as the OC with the Roughriders, who were awful, so this is a smart move. It should also quiet the players in Montreal’s offence who have been complaining about the vanilla attack.
Anybody that watches it knows it was completely accidental and unintentional and I got penalized for it.
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