It wasn't quite a Heisman pose that Stephfon Green struck in the end zone in the third quarter of Saturday's Penn State-Syracuse football game. And there was no Sharpie hidden in the sock of Washington's Jake Locker as he crossed the goal line in the final seconds of a game vs. Brigham Young two weeks ago.
Yet whistles blew and flags flew on each occasion, both the same call for the same reason. Praising Almighty for a gift-wrapped TD jaunt? Better watch your gestures. Pumped up by a last second red zone rumble? No ball flips over eye level, thank you.
Forget that Pop Warner rules shouldn't apply to a game played by men? Well, you must be the NCAA. Here a referee's happy trigger finger is the league's way of ensuring players curb their enthusiasm.
Unsportsmanlike conduct - college football's way of policing personality - has become a buzzword over the season's first three weeks. After Locker's excessive celebration penalty on Sept. 6 ended up costing Washington the game, it stirred a national debate about whether the NCAA has gone too far.
Rule 9-2-2-c in the NCAA's extensive football rulebook has written clearly as an unsportsmanlike act: "throwing the ball high in the air" - right next to spiking or spinning the ball. It's taunting they're trying to prevent. But it's excitement they're managing to curtail.
Coaches from all different conferences sounded off about whether the Pac-10 ref had it right. Florida head coach Urban Meyer called it "horrible." California's Jeff Tedford considered it "ticky-tack."
But the debate rages on. Connecticut head coach Randy Edsall, in the Big East coach's teleconference last week, didn't understand why such uproar has been created over the correct interpretation of a rule.
"It's specifically stated in the rule book that you can't throw the ball up," said Edsall, one of only three BCS coaches on the NCAA Football Rules committee. "Do you feel bad for the kid? Yeah, you do. But that's part of the rule."
It's obviously not just a west coast thing. In the third quarter of Saturday's Syracuse game vs. Penn State, Nittany Lions running back Green rushed in for a score, dropped the ball to the ground and lifted both arms straight in the air.
He was whistled and flagged for excessive celebration.
"I just pointed up to God thanking Him for letting me score the touchdown," Green said after the game.
PSU head coach Joe Paterno didn't disagree with the call.
"You don't need to do that, for crying out loud," the 81-year-old head coach said. "Take the ball, give it to the officials."
Had no penalty been assessed, however, Paterno likely wouldn't have minded. Losing 15 yards with a 39-point lead doesn't carry the same weight as if the game was on the line.
Is the NCAA confronting its pet peeves before an Ocho Cinco enrolls at a school near you? Maybe paranoia fits the diagnosis. While the NFL cracks down on misfits and misbehavior off the field - as well as a few hand slaps for T.O.-isms - its junior circuit might be exerting control with a celebration protocol.
"I understand the mentality of what they're trying to do," SU football head coach Greg Robinson said in this week's coaches teleconference. "College football is trying to keep the game a team-focused game, and that's a good thing. But sometimes it gets - I hate to use the term ticky-tack because they want them to be enforced. It's tough."
It's going too far, said William Pooler, associate professor of sociology at Syracuse. Pooler teaches the university's only "Sociology of Sport" class. He feels the NCAA has overstepped its bounds.
"I think there's a fine line," Pooler said. "But if it's not taunting, and it can be characterized as celebrating, I think it's fine."
Football is a brutal sport, of course, and violence is its medium. So when a player succeeds (i.e. takes it to the house), emotions can sometimes be impossible to control.
"There's a sense of elation," Pooler said. "It's their way of saying, 'look I'm good. I can do this.'"
Perhaps the NCAA is just out of touch with its participants. Freedom of expression has its redeeming factors, too. Part of college football's intrigue is its atmosphere - the energy, passion and enthusiasm of the game's surroundings. How can players be expected not to get even a little caught up in the moment?
"I think what they're trying to do is a good thing," Robinson said. "But the way they go about doing it makes you kind of have to shrug your shoulders a little bit."
For an institution so steadfast in maintaining control, leniency may be a tough concept to grasp. Its refs should get the message, though, when a taunt's so clearly not a taunt.
The league needs to remember what it's regulating. An unsportsmanlike penalty for overzealous enthusiasm? That, to me, sounds just plain un-sports.