SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has no interest in questions pertaining to “Horns Down” and if the celebration will be penalized — at least not right now. During an event commemorating Texas and Oklahoma’s SEC entries, Sankey declined answering whether or not officials would dock opposing teams for using the gesture.
“I won’t be answering questions about football penalties on July 1st,” Sankey told reporters.
Last summer at SEC Media Days, John McDaid — the SEC’s coordinator of football officials — hinted that “Horns Down” would, in fact, be penalized in the SEC.
“Unsportsmanlike conduct needs to fit one of three categories,” McDaid said. “Is it taunting an opponent? Is it making a travesty of the game? Is it otherwise compromising our ability to manage the game? There’s a difference between a player giving a signal directly in face of an opponent, as opposed to doing it w/teammates celebrating after a touchdown or on the sideline. To net all that out, every single occurrence is not an act of unsportsmanlike conduct.”
McDaid added that the same applies to players taunting Florida with the “Gator Chomp” and Ole Miss with the “Land Shark” signal.
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The taunt took on a new life of sorts in recent years for opponents of the Longhorns in just about all sports. Some Alabama football players wasted no time in displaying that to Texas players in Week 2 of the 2022 season after the Crimson Tide squeezed out a 20-19 victory against the Longhorns at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.
Then-Alabama coach Nick Saban wasn’t a fan of it.
“I said it after the game, aight, ‘Don’t do that…’ – I’m not gonna say it, I’ve cussed on this show too many times – ‘Stuff,'” Saban said following the contest.”I’m gonna say ‘stuff.’ ‘Don’t do that stuff.’ I told our players, ‘We’re not doing this. Don’t do it. It’s not classy. We don’t need to degrade the other team’s traditions. Just go play.’ So I saw somebody doing it after the game, and I said, ‘Don’t do that… stuff.’ But the point being is, I said, it’s the same way in all the things that you do.
“You make choices and decisions, whether it’s in school, as a person, as a player, and every time you think you’re not doing the right thing – and most people who don’t do the right thing know it’s not the right thing before they do it, they just do it anyway. So don’t do that stuff. Maybe we need to have that as a motto.”
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Texas has a target on its back when it joins the SEC and reengages with rival Texas A&M for the first time since 2011.
