Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian responded to Colin Simmons’ vulgar celebration in front of President Donald Trump by declaring: ‘I’m not going to give the guy the death penalty over an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.’
The President was in attendance for the SEC battle at Neyland Stadium after performing a dramatic flyover in Air Force One and being met with roaring cheers.
But he witnessed a shocking turn of events when Simmons sacked Faizon Brandon on third down after breaking into the backfield, which should have forced a fourth-and-29.
Instead, the junior edge rusher stood over Brandon and pretended to urinate on the field, immediately drawing a yellow flag from the officiating crew for his antics.
The referee then took to the stadium microphone to announce an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for ‘simulating using the restroom’, thus wiping out the stop.
The stunt drew instant fury on the ABC broadcast, with Kirk Herbstreit heavily ripping into the defender alongside play-by-play announcer Chris Fowler.
College football fans were left stunned on Saturday after Texas star Colin Simmons pulled off a bizarre ‘peeing’ celebration during their SEC battle against Tennessee
Steve Sarkisian insisted he won’t give his player the ‘death penalty’ over his shocking penalty
Herbstreit called it an ‘absolutely idiotic move’, while Fowler agreed and added: ‘It doesn’t get much more vulgar, either.’
But Sarkisian insisted it was not a penalty worthy of capital punishment, although he did tell the defensive star that such conduct ‘can’t continue’ in the rest of the season.
‘We gotta fix it, though, right?’ Sarkisian said. ‘That can’t continue as we move forward.’
‘Can’t happen. That’s a bad football play. We had harped and talked about not getting emotional with the crowd, and that was the emotional play.
‘We had a couple others that were close, too. We had a real talk about it at halftime, about how we needed to play the second half, and we needed to celebrate with one another.’
Sarkisian explained: ‘We took him out, we addressed it, and put him back in,’ and could not help but be impressed as Simmons sacked the Tennessee quarterback five times.
‘But five sacks was pretty cool,’ Sarkisian added.
Simmons later told reporters: ‘I apologize for the celebration. I was definitely in that mode, feeling myself. It happens.’
Simmons was handed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for ‘simulating using the restroom’
The crude act took place in front of Donald Trump who made the trip to Knoxville on Saturday
Sarkisian also indicated ‘society’ played a part in Simmons’ vulgar act as he went off on a wider tangent.
‘Unfortunately, in our society right now, we live in the ‘look at me’ society,’ Sarkisian said. ‘All of you guys have your Twitter accounts, and as fast as you can type something because you want everyone to look at your account, and you get clicks.
‘Well, that’s the world that we live in. So we’ve got to get to – it’s about the team and focus on the team, and not so much ‘look at me.’ So we’ll try to improve upon that.’
The game went down to the final play as Texas held on while Simmons’ antics went viral online in the aftermath.
Teammate Justin Cryer saw the incident unfold having also been right on the scene from his position at linebacker.
‘I tried to run over there and grab him,’ Cryer said. ‘I seen where it was going, and I tried to go grab him before we got a penalty, but it was too late.
‘After the play, I just told him, ‘Look, man, we got to just keep our head.’ I know he’s having fun, he’s excited, but at the end of the day, we don’t want to let those plays, those penalties, dictate how the game’s going to go.’
Texas is now 4-0 after handing Tennessee their first loss of the season. The Longhorns head to rivals Oklahoma in Week 6 on October 10 after a bye week.
