Photo by Paula R. Lively. CC-BY-2. 0 Ohio State quarterback J. T. Barrett allegedly suffered an injury after being hit in the knee by a cameraman during pregame warm-ups. Barrett went on to play during the first-half of the game, but left during the second-half due to the knee injury.
The claim that an unidentified cameraman was responsible was initially made by OSU coach Urban Meyer during the post-game press conference. "A guy with a camera hit [Barrett] in the knee. . . " explained a visibly angry Meyer, going on to call for an "all-out" investigation into who was responsible, though ESPN later reported that OSU Athletic Director Gene Smith said such a probe wouldn't happen.
"We're not doing a full-blown investigation to find the photographer," Smith said. "We're looking at what things led up to that. "
Details about how the incident happened are unclear, and despite there being a stadium full of cameras, no footage of the actual 'collision' has been released. TMZ has obtained some footage of the immediate aftermath from a fan who pulled out his smartphone to record what was happening, which shows Barrett limping off and gives you an idea of just how crowded the sidelines were during warm-up:
Despite Meyer's anger at the specific cameraman, the incident will probably have a broader impact rather than individual punishment. Smith stresses that the focus will be on making changes so that something like this doesn't ever happen again.
According to ESPN, Smith said:
The conference office is gathering data. That's the extent of it. The outcome of it will ultimately be improved operations. There's no attempt to try and find a person. The attempt is to find out what happened, what corrective measures we need to put in place.
So it sounds like the individual cameraman is off the hook. . . unless of course this 'collision' translates into strict new rules and limited access for sports photographers. Then he'll have have some very upset colleagues to answer to.
. dpreview.com2017-11-30 19:58