By John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange College

A sideline death. A hazardous end-of-game celebration on a field. And a rapid exit from a top college football matchup that could have produced mass casualties. It’s just another week in the NCAA. Without serious reform and strategies for a safer game, the next time, there could be plenty of deaths.

Georgia and Alabama had just finished another epic Saturday night game, with each playing their hearts out. The tired crowd surged out of Sanford Stadium, eager to get home as the clock struck midnight. But a tragedy was almost ready to unfold.

Packed tightly into the stadium as everyone sought to get home and quickly to bed, or to hit the bars, you could barely move with the sea of humanity. And the worst was yet to come.

Down the escalator, fans surged into an already growing pile of people, unable to move. My friend and I saw the danger and jumped to the side, spilling backwards into safety. Others were not so fortunate. Like bowling balls crashing into pins, the fans continued to crowd the downward escalator, with no place for those departing at the bottom to go, and still they kept coming.

Some fans and I yelled at people not to get on the escalator, but others ignored us and boarded it, contributing to the disaster. A few, seeing the danger, tried ineffectively to climb back up. Police and GBI officials ran over and demanded that people not board the escalator. Finally, some GBI officers physically blocked those at the top, saving lives at the bottom. Without their quick thinking, people might have been crushed. Law enforcement deserves our praise.

Other tragedies came on the field. University of Virginia fans eager to celebrate their victory over Florida State University, trampling an FSU wide receiver and a Virginia defensive back, both of whom could have been seriously hurt, or killed. The Virginia fan videoing himself giving the finger to the FSU QB could have touched off a riot between the teams and fans, if it were not for the FSU football players, clearly more mature than the Virginia video thrill seeker.

Don’t think this is a serious matter? A security guard from a Florida Atlantic University-Florida A&M University game died as the result of injuries he suffered when he was hit on the field of play. Letting those University of Virginia fans so near the edge of the field for so long could have been a recipe for yet another disaster.

Our basketball players showed me the video of a social media influencer, who has made a name for himself by going to stadiums and baiting home field fans just for kicks, and clicks. He’s even added some insults of female fans to his repertoire. The guy’s going to cause a riot somewhere.

The first thing NCAA College Football needs to realize is that it has a problem. It needs a real plan to keep fans from swarming the field, and those small fines don’t seem to be cutting it. Holding schools civilly liable for what happens on the field when it is rushed might spur the stadiums to beef up security. The second thing the sport needs to do is follow the plans of GBI and law enforcement, recognizing that how fans leave safely matters just as much as security for keeping threats from getting inside. Other programs need to follow how Georgia’s security detail planned for disaster, and follow that.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu or on “X” at @johntures2. His first book “Branded” will be coming out this Fall, published by Huntsville Independent Press (https://www.huntsvilleindependent.com/).