Texas fined $250,000 by SEC for debris-throwing incident during Georgia game

The university must also meet requirements laid out by the conference or have alcohol sales suspended at home games.

On Sunday, the SEC announced a financial penalty for the Texas Longhorns and laid out other requirements handed down by commissioner Greg Sankey after Saturday’s game against the Georgia Bulldogs in Austin was interrupted for four minutes by fans throwing debris on Campbell-Williams Field at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

The incident was in response to an interception return by Longhorns super senior cornerback Jahdae Barron that was initially negated by penalty that the officiating crew later reversed after meeting during the delay.

“The throwing of debris and resulting interruption of play that took place Saturday night cannot be part of any SEC event,” said Sankey. “The SEC is assigned responsibility by its membership to enforce its sportsmanship and game management policies and these actions are consistent with that oversight responsibility, including the financial penalty and mandated reviews.”

Under the conference’s sportsmanship, game management, and alcohol availability policies, Texas will:

• Be assessed a financial penalty of $250,000;
• Be required to use all available resources, including security, stadium and television video, to identify individuals who threw objects onto the playing field or at the opposing team. All individuals identified as having been involved in disrupting the game shall be prohibited from attending Texas Athletics events for the remainder of the 2024-25 academic and athletic year;
• Review and update its Athletics Department game management procedures and alcohol availability policies to prevent a recurrence of Saturday night’s disruption, which shall include an evaluation of agreed upon SEC Sportsmanship, Game Management and Alcohol policies to verify full compliance with existing standards, and
• Following completion of this review, the University shall provide a report to the Conference Office to summarize its efforts to identify and penalize offenders and its plan to enact policies to prevent future similar incidents while ensuring compliance with Conference standards.

The relevant conference bylaws state, “If cans or plastic bottles are used as projectiles or otherwise cause game management issues, the institution is subject to an immediate fine and suspension of the alcohol sales privilege.”

So even though Sankey did not take the step of suspending alcohol sales at future Texas home games this season, the conference does reserve that right if the conditions set forth by the SEC are not met by the Longhorns.