Another week, another apology from the SEC for an outcome determinative officiating blunder. How high does the body count have to get before the SEC does something about the integrity of its officiating? You don't need to be a graduate of Mike Slive's vaunted "accountability program" to know the crew that "officiated" the UGA/LSU game and the ARK/UF game could screw up a one car funeral.
Like the LSU game, this blunder wasn't what the legal profession calls "harmless error." The penalty, which the SEC concedes is not supported by any video evidence, gave the Gators the ball on the Arkansas 10-yard line. On the next play they tied the score at 20.
Tony Barnhart adds his voice to the call for a serious discussion about officiating. To his credit, he quickly dismisses conspiracy theories that the SEC is purposefully trying to help its unbeaten teams stay alive. He blames the league's philosophy instead.
I’m talking about a mindset. It’s the same mindset that looked at A.J. Green’s incredible catch and celebration with his teammates and thought SOMETHING had to be called. It’s the mindset looked at LSU’s Charles Scott, looking briefly to the stands after a touchdown run, and thought SOMETHING had to be called.Accountability starts at the top. If Rogers Redding worked for me, I'd call him into my office for a critical evaluation of his job performance. Whatever curative steps Redding took in the wake of the UGA/LSU game were demonstrably ineffective. Does he have a plan to fix the problem? "If it's not there don't call it" is not guidance. It's a meaningless platitude.
As someone who watched college football for a long time, there seems to be an attitude that officials are more concerned about NOT calling stuff. It seems to me that when in doubt, you DON’T throw the flag. To me, it’s much worse to call something that is NOT there than fail to call something that MIGHT be there.
The integrity of the league has been called into question twice in the same month, and Mike Slive needs to take affirmative, public action to assure players, coaches and fans from each of the SEC member schools that the SEC is committed to having officiating commensurate with league's reputation for high quality competition.
Could Lil' Natch really be any worse?
19 comments:
How can there be accountability when the same crew that performed so incompetently the week before is rewarded by being given a game involving the country's #1 team?
And, you could see from their performance in this game [Fla/Ark]that they most likely didn't give a $#!t if anything at all had been said to them about their previous performance.
I'm wondering what game they will be assigned(awarded), to this week? Tenn/Ala or LSU/Aub?
Everyone should wear ref shirts to Jax.
I'm personally worried that the NCAA might start asking its own questions. There are a lot of member schools in the NCAA that would love to hang the SEC right now and we're giving them the rope to do it.
At the very least, Curles and his crew should be split up, if not completely fired.
On that crew, there is also a very large official who literally CAN NOT RUN. How, even if he is the umpire, can he be expected to keep up with a game at this level?
Quite honestly, this crew makes Penn Wagers look competant.
When Slive became the SEC commissioner, he made a big deal about cleaning up all of the NCAA violations. And he was very public about it.
But now we'll see how committed to reform he is. The officiating is operated out of HIS house - not the member schools. How publicly and vigorously he tackles this will tell us all we need to know about him. The sad part is that I greatly suspect he'll do nothing of substance.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
How is the officials' performances lacking? Florida is number one and Alabama number two in the BCS. That looks like success to me.
The attention that this brings to SEC officiating is a good thing and long overdue. Now if we could just do something about the Tebow/UF lovefest with the media, nauseating.
Every last official in this league should be investigated for ties to organized gambling. Crazy, you say? Guys, it has already happened to the NBA, which orchestrated one of the lamest cover-ups in sports history last year after one of its officials was caught shaving points. And those were professional officials, not the weekend hobbyists the SEC puts on the field every Saturday that would presumably be far more open to big money incentives to "influence" outcomes. We aren't talking about missed judgment calls, here...we're talking about blatantly wrong decisions that directly influence the outcome of games. Is the SEC afraid of what it might discover?
It is my understand the crew in question is doing the UT/BAMA game this weekend.
I guestion why they are doing Ncaa games at all, at any level.
Hmmmm....the guy who has made both of the ridiculous calls went to Gtu....CUM's daughter got a scholarship to Gtu....Furman Bisher just retired...selah....
Conspiracy theory or not... the NBA just recently had a scandal involving it's officials, which are much better paid and more scrutinized than SEC officials. I think it's pretty naive to act like there absolutely could NOT be something underhanded afoot. Mike Slive will take no action on this anyway, so we'll never know. He'll act like the public and the media are once again just trying to hang somebody in public to make them feel better, and sweep this under the rug.
Slive needs to go. The problems with the SEC right now go well beyond just the referees. Under Slive, the SEC wants to make itself the superior presence in athletics, above the members schools. That's why we see SEC refs making themselves the focal point of the football games, and why we see SEC commercials being run where Mike Slive is the focus of the commercial, standing in the middle of a giant atrium with a marble floor (the ad ran all of 2008). The league office is infatuated with its own celebrity, and we see that attitude reflected in officiating.
If I see Tebag celebrate one more short yardage run for a first down with gator chomps, jumping up and down, beating his chest and throwing his arms up in the air repeatedly sans penalty flags, then there is no doubt in my mind there is some sort of biased going on here...whether it be team based or race based. I can't imagine one of UGA's players celebrating the way he does and getting away with it, especially if it was a black player.
The back judge made the call in the LSU game, not the ref (the GT grad).
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=marc+curles&init=quick#/group.php?gid=181411867836
Id like to see a head coach walk out on the field with fire in his eyes and SLING a flag up in the air, and point at the ref, and say, thats against YOU!!!!
Just a thought.
I'm with Dawg Stephen. That would be F'n Hilarious! Too bad our coach doesn't have the balls to do that. Bobby Petrino has no balls whatsoever either. He left on a jet plane in the middle of the night without even telling his players. I also agree with another poster....I might show up in Jax with a ref outfit and a hundred yellow flags hanging out of my pants. Now I just have to get first row seats. I'll do it too. Anyone got first row seats they want to give up? I was (drinkinking heavily) watching that game Sat. and thought out loud while, when those yellow flags were thrown, my brother was watching (and drinking) with me..."It's kind of hard to believe that something isn't happening here." "This didn't happen during the rest of the game, why is it happening now"? What I didn't realize until Monday is that it was the same crew that officiated the GA/LSU game. Then I learn today that, not only has Mike Slive not punished them, but rewarded them this week by giving them the UT/Bama game. If I was a Bama fan, I would be pissed. I'm sorry to make excuses, but I think that had those calls not been made against AJ green, and Arkansas, I believe there are different outcomes in both games. Don't fool yourself into thinking different. These are big time calls in big time games, that had big time consequences, that definitely influenced the outcomes of the games. It should not go unpunished. If I get something that bad wrong in my job, then guess what? I'm unemployed the next day. What's the difference?
And I'm not intellectually grammar inclined, so please excuse all of my errors.
Will UGA be blessed with penn wagers and his traveling buffoons in jax. ?
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