Penn State football: Micah Parsons handled ejection well, despite tweeting
Penn State football linebacker Micah Parsons wasn’t happy on Friday, but the young leader handled his punishment well, according to James Franklin.
When it comes to today’s game of football, there always seems to be some questionable calls. As officials are trying to make the game much safer, referees are very reluctant to penalize players and teams for specific hits that would’ve been applauded decades ago.
Penn State football had one of those situations on Friday night in their game against Maryland. Except for they didn’t just catch a 15-yard penalty — they also caught an ejection.
Nittany Lions’ star linebacker Micah Parsons always plays with high intensity. Sometimes, he may get a little carried away, and he seemed to have done that this past Friday night early on against the Maryland Terrapins on the road.
As Parsons had a clear lane to get to the Terps quarterback, the linebacker was going full speed without a chance of slowing down. Although the Maryland quarterback got his throw off in time, he was bound to take a hit from Parsons either way.
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The fact that Parsons hit the passer after the throw wasn’t an issue. But the way he hit him eventually led to a penalty and an early ejection. According to referee’s, Parsons hit fell under the controversial targeting rules as he left his feet and went at the quarterback’s head.
When the referee announced the punishment, Parsons was visibly disappointed. However, he didn’t react much to it as he wasted no time trotting to the locker room. At the time, the loss of Parsons was significant since it was so early on in the game.
In the long run, though, Penn State wouldn’t need Parsons as his team served well without him, destroying Maryland with a final score of 59-0. Even Micah Parsons recognized his team didn’t need him and decided to tweet about it in the locker room while the game was still going.
As you can expect, James Franklin was not thrilled about the fact that Parsons was tweeting behind-the-scenes while the game was still in play — primarily because he was technically dealing with punishment. Franklin wasn’t angry with Parsons, per se — but he did agree with the referee’s decision as he mentioned: “It wasn’t a smart play.”
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Even though Franklin didn’t like the locker room tweeting, he did think that Parsons handled the situation well. Instead of throwing a fit, or trying to argue with the refs based off of the final decision, Parsons just took his slight loss to the chin and moved on. Clearly, the young linebacker showed he has respect for the game and the consequences that come with it.