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Saturday, January 5, 2008

Ok... which one of you left your glasses at home today?


This neck of the woods has been pretty quiet for about 6 months now, but the state of the officiating during the BCS games has been so brutal that I have been left with no choice but to come out of hiding and say something. It seems like everytime I turn around, somewhere, someone is posting something about awful officiating. While I'm in no position to keep up with what is going on - I have made a new, new year's resolution - and that is to try and keep up a little better, and at least post a little more often than once every 6 months. As for this time - I am sick and tired of horrible officiating. John Feinstein wrote a great article on the state of the officiating in this years bowl games. In this article he mentions the following:

The amateurish level of college football officiating has been an embarrassment for years and seems to only be getting worse.

While I was watching the Orange bowl the other night between Virginia Tech and Kansas, it seemed like ever other play there was either a ridiculous pentalty being called, or one that wasn't called that should have been called. Even the announcers were making comments about the poor officiating. It was beyond ridiculous. I know in the end, they probably evened themselves out - but seriously - the whole college football thing is so ridiculously run with the whole BCS nonsense, you would think they could at least get some decent officials in there.

At least John gives us a ray of hope in his article:

The NCAA hired David Parry last week to coordinate college football officiating, a bold step forward that comes only 20 years after Hank Nichols was hired to do the same job in basketball.


He goes on to say,,,

Maybe the first thing the new coordinator can do is make sure that everyone working as a college football official actually knows the rules.


I couldn't agree more. Please NCAA, to show the fans the respect they deserve - please give us a playoff, but if you can't do that... please put officials on the field that at least know the rules.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have my doubts that you know the rules yourself as the overwhelming number of fans don't know the rules or the mechanics the officials use.... which makes you neither a credible nor a constructive critic to know what is or isn't good officiating.

However, one thing I am quite sure of is that knickers and striped shirts are made in your size for that day when you choose to come out onto the field and prove how much of the rules you actually do know... if you have the courage to do so.

Riggs said...

Boy... you sound like you must be an official yourself taking this a little personal. Hey listen - this site is generally pretty unbiased and actually respectful towards the officials. I understand they have very high and perhaps unfair expectations placed on them. But in the case of the BCS games, the officiating was inconsistent and at times took away from the excitement of the game. I was basically just pointing out what was written in the article. Oh and you are right - I have no credibility to be an official, partly because I can't see out of my left eye - but then again, maybe that'd still make me eligible for next years BCS games.