Dana Holgorsen says Iowa State fans storming field after upset win was 'unprofessional'
Almost immediately after Iowa State completed its 30-14 upset win over then-No. 6 West Virginia in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday night, thousands of Cyclones fans stormed the field at Jack Trice Stadium.
And as far as the tradition goes, it makes sense. The Cyclones, who boast a 3-3 record, had just knocked off one of the top teams in the country at night on their own turf. If fans are ever going to rush a field after a win, Saturday night in Ames was about the perfect time to do so.
Yet West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen wasn’t happy about it.
“It was very unprofessional. Our job is to keep student-athletes in a safe place and when you’ve got thousands of people coming at you, it’s not good,” Holgorsen said on the Big 12 teleconference on Monday. “There’s league rules and league bans against that for a reason. Our job is to keep players safe. We didn’t have time to get them off the field. That was not good.
“It was dicey there for a while. Luckily we got out of there without getting anybody hurt.”
Now, Holgorsen has a point. When thousands of people are rushing onto the field, it can be difficult for players and coaches to leave the field. It can even get dangerous on occasion. Des Moines Register columnist Randy Peterson even broke his leg trying to get to the media room following an Iowa State basketball game when fans stormed the court in 2015.
Iowa State coach Matt Campbell, though, said he and several of his staff didn’t celebrate in the scrum after the win. They went to help the Mountaineers off the field.
“I thought our administration handled it really well,” Campbell said, per the Des Moines Register. “I know myself and a couple of our staff members — instead of celebrating, went over and made sure the West Virginia people got off the field safely.
“I thought our administration and our coaching staff did the No. 1 priority — making sure their players and staff got off the field safely.”
The Big 12 conference is currently reviewing the situation. The league has no standard penalty for field-storming, like the SEC, and reviews each case individually.
While it can get chaotic, and definitely needs to be done in a safe way that protects coaches and athletes, fans storming the field after a big win is a part of college athletics. That’s likely not going to change anytime soon.
The only real way to prevent that from happening is, well, to win.
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