It was all the ESPN and ABC folks could talk about on Saturday, the field storm after UVA’s 46-38 upset of #8 Florida State in two OTs on Friday night.
No mention in the breathless fawning on how cool it was about the 19 people treated for injuries after the field storm, and a second incident involving fans outside the stadium on Alderman Road.
The reason the TV folks wouldn’t want to acknowledge the bad news: c’mon, you know.
Nineteen people were hurt, but, I mean, that looked crazy, right?
ICYMI
The ACC, in July, made a big public to-do about how it was joining the rest of Power 4 in requiring member schools to create peer-reviewed security plans aimed at preventing future field and court storms, and was instituting a schedule of fines for incidents, starting with a $50,000 fine for a first-time offender.
Last night, the ACC slapped UVA Athletics, a first-time offender, on the wrist with a $50,000 fine, in accordance with the new policy.
Tsk-tsk.
I reached out to the University yesterday to try to learn more about what happened Friday night, and got the barest of PR statements back, not even really a lot of sound and fury, though what they got back to me with certainly signified nothing.
It’s trickled out since that no players were hurt in the storm, which is nothing short of a miracle – a split-second after Ja’Son Prevard pulled in the game-sealing INT in the end zone, fans were already stampeding past Prevard and FSU wideout Squirrel White, who were both on the ground after having leapt into the air to try to pull down the pass.
It doesn’t take much to trample somebody into a serious injury or worse – there’s the story of Joe Kay, a Stanford basketball and volleyball recruit who was steamrolled by fans at his high school after a dunk that capped a win over a rival in 2004; Kay suffered a torn carotid artery in the bumrush, nearly died on the court, and was left paralyzed on his right side.
Three years earlier, I was witness to a court storm at University Hall after UVA finished off an upset of #1 Duke that nearly took the life of an usher, who was fortunate to escape with a broken arm because two members of the UVA Football team stopped and formed an impromptu protective cordon around her as students continued to stream past.
These kinds of things have been going on forever, is one takeaway here, leading to the obvious response from the armchair critics, to the effect that, if a few thousand people are intent on running onto a football field, how are you going to stop them, which, I get.
But, again, c’mon, look at the photo that I snatched from a video that I shot of the scene as it happened Friday night.
There is nothing in place to prevent what happened – no security barriers at the bottom of the open-ended grassy fan area that we affectionately call The Hill, not a single security guard on the west side of the goalpost, only five on the east side, four of those huddled in a corner out of harm’s way.
You have to go through what feels like a TSA line to get into the stadium; getting onto the field a heartbeat after the game is over should maybe be a little more difficult.
A bigger issue here is, the storming was anything but spontaneous – students on The Hill began pushing their way toward the field at least 20 minutes before what turned out to be the final play, when the game was in the fourth quarter, inside of two minutes to go, and the ‘Hoos had a 35-28 lead, and appeared to be on the verge of having the game under wraps.
Between then and the end of the game, we have to presume that the gameday operations people would have been on their walkie-talkies discussing what they could do to keep things from getting out of hand.
And the solution was: just let ‘em do whatever they’re going to do?
We’re lucky the stampede didn’t end with somebody or multiple somebodies suffocating at the bottom of a mass of humanity, that a player on either team didn’t meet the same fate of Joe Kay.
We’ve come to learn that at least one person suffered a broken bone, apparently a broken leg – we can hope that it’s a clean break, doesn’t require surgery, won’t have long-term repercussions.
Hoping for good luck that nobody gets seriously hurt or dies when one of these things happens isn’t a plan.
A plan is – you secure the field, however you need to; if you need security barriers, you have security barriers; if you need more staff, you have more staff.
Now, to be clear, I’m not blaming the kids here, or, necessarily, UVA Athletics.
My thinking there: remember how I started this column, mentioning how, the field storm after the game was all the folks on ESPN and ABC could talk about yesterday.
For all the tsk-tsking about relatively miniscule fines being handed down in the aftermath, the ESPN folks, you’ll note, didn’t exactly cut away from the field storm, the way you routinely see broadcasters cut away when a lone idiot runs on the field after having had one too many.
Field storms, court storms, they’re considered part of the show – by the TV people and, let’s be honest here, the schools.
I can guarantee that UVA, as an institution, didn’t mind being talked about all day on every ESPN and ABC game; I saw a clip of the field storm in the fourth quarter of the Alabama-Georgia game on ABC primetime last night.
Schools like UVA spend a couple hundred million a year on athletics for that precise reason – it’s all PR, aimed at prospective students.
A field storm after a big win over a Top 10 team puts the school in about as positive a light as you can imagine.
It’s Debbie Downers like me raining on the parade that are the problem.
Nineteen people suffering injuries – that’s just collateral damage.
As you might guess, I have Freedom of Information Act requests in with UVA to get a copy of the peer-reviewed gameday security plan, and communications about said security plan among top athletics department officials.
Something tells me that the request will ultimately be denied; the FOIA law has loopholes that you can fit 5,000 kids celebrating a big win through.
ICYMI
- UVA vs. Florida State | Live Coverage: ‘Hoos shock #8 FSU in two OTs, 46-38
- UVA Football | ‘Hoos outlast #8 Florida State in double-OT instant classic
- ‘Hoos 46, #8 FSU 38 | That may be the prettiest ugly game we’ve ever seen
- UVA Football: Five Observations | Still trying to digest the upset of #8 FSU
Looking out at the remainder of the football schedule for the 2025 season, I see one more game that could be problematic – the season finale with Virginia Tech.
Just thinking out loud here, but the win Friday night has the UVA Football team at 2-0 in the ACC, with a favorable schedule – favorable enough that a trip to Charlotte for the ACC Championship Game could be in the offing.
It doesn’t seem hard to figure that, if you beat the rival to get into the ACC Championship Game, you might have yourself a situation like we saw last night.
A lot can and will happen between now and the end of November; hopefully, one thing that happens is, the gameday ops folks figure out how to keep people safe, just in case.
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Chris Graham
