I'm all for doing things to improve player safety and I can understand if someone gets flagged in a game for a helmet to helmet or for hitting a defenseless receiver, but to suspend a player for a game because of that is just stupid. To me, you suspend someone in the NCAA for disciplinary reasons, not for a game rule violation. Next thing you know, people will be getting suspended for chop blocks, 15 yard face masks, late hits out of bounds, roughing the passer, and roughing the kicker because those things are just as dangerous. Isn't the penalty flag enough to prevent those things from happening? That was an unfair act against Nebraska.

Everyone is for safety in college football. But the arbitrary nature of this suspension is bound to bring up questions on the part of nearly every coach.

Taking a stand on the issue of helmet-to-helmet primary contact is certainly a good thing. It's just that this incident was not a very good example of the problem. It looks as though most of the contact was with the shoulder in the upper chest area even though helmet contact was made after that. The Nebraska player made a hard hit and then acted like a jerk after the play. That does not make it an illegal or malicious hit that requires suspension.

This makes Dan Beebe and the Big 12 Conference further look like they really don't have a clue what they're doing. It almost appears as though they're simply taking their cues from an announcer who may or may not even understand the intricacies of the issue. One could probably go back over the tapes from the previous weekend and dole out at least a half a dozen suspensions over plays that were better examples of contact where the hit was actually first and primarily helmet-to-helmet. Right now the issue is a muddled mess and really does need clarification.