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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I've been mystified by the whining of Stoops, and he's become to me an even less sympathetic character than I thought possible. You might have mentioned the whining of LSU AD Skip Bertman about a few calls in the Auburn/LSU game this weekend or the whining of USC officials about Brent Musberger's spilling the beans. Three incidents do make a trend and all.
And speaking of human error, this passage reads a little funny: "Oklahoma has continued its overreaction by threatening to pull out of a scheduled game at Washington in 2008 if the Pac-10 doesn't agree to change its policy of having Pac-10 crews work non-conference home games, a standard policy throughout college football."
It's "standard policy throughout college football" for Pac-10 refs to work non-conference home games? I can forgive King's mistakes--I make a million of them every time I write something--but I can't forgive his editor, who should catch those mistakes.
The game was given to Oregon. Period.
We all saw the plays, we all stared in disbelief as the replay officials inexplicably "didn't".
Are the mobilehoma sooners overreacting? I'd say that when the president gets involved, it must be serious, or he's overstepping his bounds.
In this case, it's both.
Nonetheless, if there's ever been a more eggregious example of a game being handed to a team, I'd appreciate knowing about it. Not even the 5th down Mizzou/Colorado game qualifies.
Solution: Fire the officiating crew . Period.
Apparently the reason the replay official didn't overturn the call on the field is that he had only one replay to look at, and it didn't show the Oregon player touching the football before it travelled 10 yards. The replay official was being pressured to make a quick decision, apparently because of TV concerns, so based on the information he had he upheld the decision on the field.
Given that, it's an overreaction of the Pac-10 to suspend the replay official, and probably an overreaction to suspend the officiating crew as well. The suspensions appear to be an attempt to calm down the folks from Oklahoma, but it hasn't worked that way.
While I agree that the officiating mistakes in the OU-Oregon game did not reach historical or biblical proportions, when you examine what's potentially riding on that game, I can't help but agree with the OU people. Because there's no playoff system in college football, one loss essentially means you're out of the running for a national championship. Not that I think OU has the firepower to contend for a national title this year, but they are certainly among the top 15 or 20 teams in the country. That loss effectively dashed their hopes at a national title, and seriously dented their hopes of a BCS bid -- and all of the money/exposure/hype/recruiting value/alumni support/etc. that come with a BCS bid. And to make matters worse, those calls weren't even arguable ... they were OBVIOUS. Of course under the pressure of time and with umpteen thousand screaming fans, the replay official's job is far from easy. Maybe there was a fly on his monitor. But it definitely cost OU more than just a loss in a sporting contest. We're talking mucho diniero here.
And I don't necessarily fault OU for threatening to never play another Pac-10 opponent until the refereeing policy is changed. Of course it's ridiculous to claim that the officials were actively cheating or trying to screw OU. But internal bias can be a strong and often underappreciated influence. It colors the way you see things. 5 different people can have 5 different interpretations of the same event based on their internal biases. The possibility that officials' calls will be colored by their inherent bias toward the conference which employs them should be enough to require that non-conference games be officiated by neutral officials. And I realize that should be an oxymoron, but let's face it ... we're all human.
I don't think it is "standard policy throughout college football" to have officials from the home team's conference officiate non-conference games. If I recall correctly, for example, an SEC crew worked the Alabama/Oklahoma game in Norman one year followed by a Big XII crew that worked the Oklahoma/Alabama game in Tuscaloosa. Perhaps this policy, and not the one you stated as a matter of fact, is more widespread? If so, is it possible the Pac 10 policy is non-standard? The replay review of the onside kick at the end of that game in Eugene was egregious and inexplicable, and Oregon's "victory" leaves a sick hole inside many Oklahoma football fans. We'll get over it. But don't patronize us.
Brandon Matheny
Worcester, Mass.
I think we need to shut down sports for a while and investigate this travesty of justice. Every other sporting event has been officiated perfectly, and settled only by the skill of the teams! We weep for you, Oklahoma.
Sincerely,
The '85 Cardinals
The '05 Colts
The last-week Football Giants
The '96 Orioles
The '99 Sabres
The '90 Missouri Tigers Football Team (and Georgia Tech too)
The '98 Roy Jones, Jr.'s
It's a football game. Get over it, and yourselves.
It's great to have King back to inject a little sanity into what has become a sea of craziness. Before replay was used there were bad calls all the time in football, several every game, often huge calls possibly turning wins into losses. Testaverde being called accross the goal line against Seattle, Rob Lytle being called down by contact in an Oakland-Denver playoff game, Mike Renfro being denied a touchdown in the AFC championship. This used to happen all the time, fans of the losing team would be incensed for a few days, and then you would settle down into your perpetual state of bitterness about the loss and the game would become part of sports lore.
As King points out with the advent of the replay review system we expect every call to be perfect and accept no error. But what the Oklahoma people have completely forgotten is that without replay the outcome of the game would have been the same. They have no reason to be more outraged than any other fan whose team was robbed by a bad call. And anyone who has watched sports long enough has had their team robbed at least a few times. This was garden variety stuff. Please calm down and shut up!
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