The University of Arkansas this week announced that it would allow fans to rush the football field, but only after a three-minute delay.
According to ESPN, the Razorbacks’ athletics department said the three-minute delay is meant to give game officials and the opposing team time to exit the field. The countdown timer will be displayed on the video board.
The implementation of countdown clocks for field and court rushing has been tried at other schools, like Vanderbilt, which introduced the court-storming countdown clock to men’s basketball games in February of this year. Prior to the implementation of the countdown clock, Vanderbilt paid over $850,000 in court-storming fines.
Related: SEC Commissioner Sankey Increases Fines for Court Storming to $500k
However, in June, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey announced sweeping updates to the SEC court-storming and field-storming policies, increasing fines and making rules more stringent. Rather than the tiered fine system of the 2024 season, which allowed schools to pay smaller fines for the first two infractions, now, SEC schools will be fined $500,000 for each violation.
Sankey also said that the fines will not apply if students wait to rush the field or court until after the visiting team and game officials have retreated to the locker room.
"The safety of our student-athletes and the student-athletes from the visiting institution is extremely important to all of us," Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek said in a statement. "By implementing this new policy, we are allowing the visiting team to clear the field so our fans can safely join our team on the field to celebrate the big win. We look forward to our fans and students complying with this policy the first time we get to implement it so we can all enjoy a huge win."
