RE: SBC Refs called out on national TV
Well I will throw my .02 cents in. I will preface this with the fact that I officiated high school football for 14 years, working everything from pee wee up to 3 state championship games in Virginia. I know several officials who work/have worked in the ACC, CUSA, and the Big East so I got the perspective of those conferences as well.
Rules: Different in high school, college, and the NFL so keep that in mind. Points of emphasis change each year and can change by conference, meaning what one conference deems unsportsmanlike in one conference may be allowed in another (chestbump, pointing, praying, etc)
Now, I only saw the punt play replay once and it was quick. It looked as if they player gained possession. If the official ruled he gained possession then the ball is dead at that point. End of discussion. Had he not gained possession, you would have seen a bean bag down to indicate "first touching" by the defender. As I said, I only saw it once.
The fumble on the try was the correct call but the announcing was incorrect. The ball was fumbled out of bounds therefore the try was no good. Had the AF player recovered it he could not advance the ball due to the fact that on 4th downs and tries only the person fumbling the ball can advance it. For those of you old enough to remember Dave Caspar and the Oakland Raiders.
Now, for those of you who wonder why conferences have officials, it boils down to numbers, evaluations and contracts. Each of those officials are independent contractors who are paid by the game worked and are paid travel. They must get off their "day job" to travel to the site (generally Friday night) and do not get back home until Sat night (day game) or Sunday. The bigger conferences pay more money, better games and therefore get better officials. On any given Saturday, you will have somewhere around 60 FBS games. That means 420 officials on the field. That does not include 60 clock operators or 60 25 second clock operators. Nor does it include the problem of replacing someone last second due to illness or emergency. Logistically, it would be a nightmare to attempt to schedule those games and we haven't even discussed evaluations of game film. Just remember, if you want the NCAA to do that, then they would also have to do FCS, Div II and Div III, meaving 150 plus games a weekend and probaly 1500 or so folks.
Do I get mad at officials? Yep. Sometimes it is because of homerism. Most times it is because someone is out of position and screws a call up or just has bad mechanics. And I will tell you another thing. We fans get to sit at home and watch and then see the replay from a couple of angles and slowed down. Those guys are on the field moving with very large athletes who move incredibly fast and they have to make a judgement call on a bang-bang play. Bottom line, they get the vast majority of those bang-bang plays right. And if you don't understand how fast that game is, get someone to get you on the field to see it up close. Heck, see if you can get down on the sideline of your local high school game and try to look and see what is happening.
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