The SEC made what was already known official on Sunday. The league fined Vanderbilt $100,000 after its fans rushed the field following the Commodores’ Sunday win against Alabama football in Nashville.
The VU penalty wasn’t the only fine the league levied. Arkansas, which saw its supporters storm the field in Fayetteville after the Razorbacks beat Tennessee, also incurred a $250,000 penalty.
Vanderbilt’s fine was its first offense under the SEC’s revised access to competition area fine system, which began mid-2023. After the first fine, a second offense costs $250,000 and any subsequent violations run $500,000 each.
Arkansas first ran afoul of the policy in November, when its fans stormed the court after a men’s basketball win over Duke. Both the Razorbacks’ and Vanderbilt’s fines will go to the losing school, while the first Arkansas offense went to the SEC’s post-graduate scholarship fund, due to the Blue Devils being an out of conference opponent.
The league first instituted fines in 2004. It has upped the fine amounts twice since then, in 2015 and 2023. The penalty counts reset with each change.
Alabama athletics director Greg Bryne has called for an even stiffer penalty for field rushes. The UA football program has seen SEC schools incur field entry fines eight times since 2004, more than any other team in the league.
“Kids aren’t going to be in the stands saying “Oh, I don’t want to do this because the school is gonna get fined $200,000,” Byrne said in February. “That doesn’t enter their mindset. But if they knew the game that they just had been a part of, celebrated a great win that led to that, if they knew that they were going to lose that game immediately, that would stop them.”
