It's your guiltiest pleasure. C'mon, you know you love it and it's ok, you can be honest.

You're a football fan.

You love watching a receiver get his head knocked off going across the middle. It gives you chills - the good kind - when the entire stadium erupts into 'ooohs' as an empty helmet tumbles across the turf. Of course, you never want to see anyone get hurt, but physicality and excitement is what this game is all about.

You love it when Josh Gaines rips a quarterback down by the jersey as if he were a rag doll. You tear up when Derrick Williams points both hands at the student section, then pounds his chest after a long touchdown run. And when Anthony Scirrotto throws himself like a missile into a receiver, those football chills come back.

Cherish those chills. Treasure the memories of Jay Alford's flip into the endzone in 2005 and of "the hit" -- Michael Robinson's sideline demolition the same year. Because the head honchos at the Big Ten are trying to do away with them.

Yesterday, during the first session of Big Ten Football Media Day, members of the media were treated to a video presentation shown to Big Ten officials. The conference uses the video, which shows different plays from the past few seasons, to emphasize the "crackdown" on certain penalties.

The three calls the conference has decided to get tougher on are hits on defenseless receivers, the 'horse collar' tackle and taunting.

Yes, hitting a defenseless receiver helmet to helmet is sometimes dirty and always dangerous. It should be a penalty. The horse collar is also a high-risk tackle. Refs have to toss their hankies at these infractions.

But some of the hits in the video were not helmet to helmet, some of the 'horse collars' were last minute drag-downs by jersey sleeves. This is football, it's a rough game, you can't police everything. And taunting is a whole other ballgame.

One play in the video showed a defensive back leveling a receiver in the flat. It was one of those "oooh" moments and it was clean. When the player got up, he pumped his fists. He was fired up, but Dave Perry the coordinator of officials for the Big Ten and the video's narrator, called the fist-pump a taunt.

Former Ohio State quarterback Kirk Herbstreit was a victim of some vicious hits and some silly taunts during his playing days. Now he oversees the action from the press box. When he commentates a game, he said yesterday, he calls it like he sees it.

"If a guy waves the ball in front of another guy's face, to me, that's a penalty," Herbstreit said. "But if you're showing emotion, I think it's embarrassing when they call penalties for that. There's a difference between being pumped and taunting a guy."

All of these penalties not only affect the fan's experience watching, it also affects the quality of the competition. How so Herbstreit?

"Momentum. Not only does it effect yardage," Herbstreit said. "But it takes the air out of the sails."

A football player has to be a little crazy. After all, it hurts to throw your body at someone else running full speed. So to penalize the guys that hit the hardest and show emotion is a total team deflator.

With this crackdown, the officials will be taking the passion, the excitement and the viciousness out of football. All three of those qualities are needed. They're what make football the great game it is. They're what make you the fan you are.