For the fifth time this year, and the third time in the SEC, a football program’s fans have “cost” their university financially.
Following Texas A&M’s epic seven-overtime win over LSU Saturday night/Sunday morning, Aggies fans descended on Kyle Field en masse in celebration of A&M’s upset of the Tigers. Monday, the SEC announced that A&M has been fined $50,000 for violating “the Southeastern Conference access to competition area policy, due to fans entering the field.”
This was the university’s first violation of a policy that was enacted in 2004; a second violation would result in a $100,000 fine and any subsequent violation would cost the school $250,000 for each occurrence. The conference noted in its release that “[f]ines levied against schools for violation of the access to competition area policy are deposited into the SEC Post-Graduate Scholarship Fund.”
The SEC had previously fined Kentucky (HERE) and LSU (HERE) for field-storming fans this season. The Pac-12 also fined Washington State for its own field-storming incident last month, while the Big 12 did the same to Iowa State.
This, though, likely isn’t the last time the SEC home office gets involved in a situation surrounding this game as it had previously been reported that an LSU football staffer, Steve Kragthorpe, was punched by an A&M staffer in the postgame maelstrom. It was subsequently confirmed that the alleged puncher is the nephew of A&M head coach Jimbo Fisher; Monday night, a statement attributed to Fisher was released by the football program.