Pac-10 refs err again

[Boomer.....]

Pac-10 confirms errors in Baylor-Wazzu game

Saturday, September 23, 2006
By Jerry Hill
Waco Tribune-Herald assistant sports editor

Not that it does a lot of good now, but the Pac-10 Conference agrees with Baylor.

Head coach Guy Morriss, who asked the league to review six plays from last Saturday’s 17-15 loss to Washington State, received a report Thursday from Pac-10 coordinator of football officiating Verle Sorgen.

In all six cases, Sorgen agreed with Baylor’s assessment and “graded down” the referee, back judge and head linesman. But there was no public apology by Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen nor game suspensions handed down like there were for the mistakes made at the end of the Oklahoma-Oregon game that cost the Sooners a victory.

“That’s about all you get is I’m sorry,” Morriss said Friday. “It’s just to make them aware of it more than anything. And I know I might get in trouble, but I think there has to be some accountability (for the game officials).”

Six plays were reviewed by the league:

* Washington State running back DeMaundray Woolridge blocking Baylor cornerback Braelon Davis in the back on a passing play in the second quarter.

* A phantom holding penalty called on left guard Chad Smith in the fourth quarter on a play that would have resulted in a 19-yard pass. The league official said Smith “reaches out for the defender, but does not grab or otherwise impede him.”

* Linebacker Steve Dildine hits Baylor receiver Dominique Zeigler before the pass gets there on the two-point conversion try in the fourth quarter, but no interference is called.

* Woolridge fumbles down on the goal line on strips by cornerback C.J. Wilson and linebacker Joe Pawelek, “but the umpire signals possession immediately.” In that situation, recovery is not reviewable.

* On third-and-goal from the 1-yard line, tight end Jed Collins and running back Dwight Tardy try to push quarterback Alex Brink into the end zone, which is illegal. But it’s a call that is “rarely flagged,” the report said, because it’s too hard to determine if they’re assisting or just blocking.

* At the end of the same play, tight end Cody Boyd takes a swing at Baylor outside safety Maurice Linguist, which should have been a 15-yard, unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against the Cougars. But no call is made.

“The thing that drives me crazy is it seems like it happens to us week after week,” Morriss said. “What do you say to your kids?”

Two weeks ago, Baylor defensive coordinator Bill Bradley was reprimanded and fined by the Big 12 Conference office for comments that he made after the Bears’ 17-7 loss to TCU.

“It’s just another element of the game that we feel like we have to overcome,” Morriss said.

[ADs_Agent]

IMHO before Baylor worries about officiating, maybe they should have to worry about bowl contention.

[Nate Johnson]

I am not moved.

[RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!]

I am not moved.I certainly am. I hate for officials to make so many mistakes. It takes away so much from a game.

[Boomer.....]

It is crazy that no conferences will admit to their officials making bad calls, but the Pac-10 has to publicly do it twice already this season.

[Scott D]

[pac-10]guys, you're ****in' baylor...we're sorry, but no rolling suspensions for these refs[/pac-10]

[TheHumanAlphabet]

I am moved. Barry Alvarez's comment about the PAC-10 refs "looking out" for their own must be addressed. Sounds like the hosing Baylor got could have made a difference in the game, but certainly wasn't in the proportion of the hosing we got in Oregon. Those vaunted "non-preferential" PAC-10 refs are being shown to be the harlots of home and very preferential...

We need a national pool of refs, to be assigned outside of their conference on all intra-sectional non-conference games.

[IronSooner]

I still don't understand why there's no accountability for reffing. If they're going to have replay it seems worthwhile that someone grade the refs like players are graded after games. Those who do well get better gigs, ref bigger games, etc. Those who are shown to be flat-out bad get downgraded or fired. It shouldn't be that hard.

[Taxman71]

The big problem is that NCAA football is a billion dollar business full of millionaire coaches, stadiums worth hundreds of millions of dollars and TV contracts that boggle the mind. Yet, decisions which can change the outcome of the game are made by individuals who are above reproach. Their performance is not reviewed, coaches are not allowed to discuss them and they have no duty to explain their performance. They are more insulated than the US Supreme Court or the POTUS. This needs to change for the integrity of the game which, frankly, is questionable right now....and that is without even mentioning the debacle that is officiating in the state of Tejas.

[StoopTroup]

This is hurting College Football.

[TexasSooner01]

Either fire them or get them lasik eye surgery!

[boomrsoonr]

I don't understand you guys. So what if it's "only Baylor"? It's a football team! And refs should do their best to get the calls right. With the advent of "instant replay", there's no excuse for poor officiating. And it affects everyone.

I'm glad Baylor called them out on it and that they've now admitted to a second occurance. It shows the rest of the Country how crappy the Pac-10 is and what is going on.

I don't care if it was Pocono State Dental College. This kind of thing has to be brought out and if it is brought out enough, then maybe someone will finally balls up and do something about it.

[sooner518]

most of these seem like judgement calls to me. holding is such a subjective call, its hard to say that the official was biased.

The really bad call of the bunch in my eyes is where the refs blow a play dead too early giving Baylor no chance at recovering the ball since it was blown dead, it isn't reviewable. It happenned to OU at Oregon.

[OnlyOneOklahoma]

That is most unfortunate for Baylor, i kinda felt a sickening feeling about pac10 with them insisting their referees ref out of confrence games. We let them come to norman and call all the holding they wanted on us (which they did) then we go to oregon and get all the holding calls again by refs from the same confrence. I feel bad for Baylor but perhaps this is the only way to change confrence policies

[bstuff1979]

I have a friend in Toledo who's a huge ohio state/bigtenleven fan and loves to take a jab at OU every chance he gets. Talked with him on Saturday night and even he thinks this Pac 10 ref thing is a wee bit out of control. One game is a horrible thing, but two is a trend. If this ohio state guy, who said, "yeah, I have no doubt that the game wasn't fixed from the get go, but if the pac ten folks are given the opportunity to fix it they'll fix it", thinks there's something rank going on then it's not just "us". Of course, he also went on to slam Boren for around half an hour. Yeah we need nationalization of officiating, but where's the outcry for NCAA investigations into Pac 10 officiating on the whole?

[boomrsoonr]

holding is such a subjective call, its hard to say that the official was biased.


Not when the suspected player doing the holding never even touched the player supposedly held. Read it again.



The league official said Smith “reaches out for the defender, but does not grab or otherwise impede him.”

[FaninAma]

The PAC 10 officiating absolutely sucks. All of the officiating crews from BCS conferences probably have a few home cooking calls in non-conference games, but the PAC 10 is in-your-face with their blatant homerism.

I hope that all of the major BCS conferences wise up and the PAC 10 is left with the East Popcorn States of the world to schedule non-conference games with.

[crimson&cream]

IMHO before Baylor worries about officiating, maybe they should have to worry about bowl contention.
Is that not a bit hypocritical,as it's OK for us to bitch-Oregon game-about the officiating but Baylor can't when the calls were wrong in their Pac 10 game. I'd say the Pac 10 has got problems with their Refs. Besides they can't get to a bowl if such things that happened in this game continues to happen to them.
If a team has a legit beef about the officiating I think they should speak up regardless who they are.:pop:

[Stoop Dawg]

I am under the impression that refs *are* graded after each game. And that the "better" refs get the "bigger" games. That's probably why Baylor got crap refs.

I'm also under the impression that the PAC 10 has a serious ref shortage going on. I heard that the refs from the OU-UO game actually reffed the ASU game last week even though they were "suspended" because of the shortage. Dunno if that's true.

[crimson&cream]

I have a friend in Toledo who's a huge ohio state/bigtenleven fan and loves to take a jab at OU every chance he gets. Talked with him on Saturday night and even he thinks this Pac 10 ref thing is a wee bit out of control. One game is a horrible thing, but two is a trend. If this ohio state guy, who said, "yeah, I have no doubt that the game wasn't fixed from the get go, but if the pac ten folks are given the opportunity to fix it they'll fix it", thinks there's something rank going on then it's not just "us". Of course, he also went on to slam Boren for around half an hour. Yeah we need nationalization of officiating, but where's the outcry for NCAA investigations into Pac 10 officiating on the whole?
Why slam Boren because he has some backbone. Besides what business of the naysayer's anyway. Go back to your "Horseshoe" dry up and blow away.

[GrapevineSooner]

IMHO before Baylor worries about officiating, maybe they should have to worry about bowl contention.

I'd like to think coaches can take into account the things they could have done differently while still asking for accountability from the refs.

Seems to me Bob Stoops echoed those very same sentiments last Tuesday.

[OnlyOneOklahoma]

/agree

[Statalyzer]

I am not moved.

No sympathy for a team who went through the same thing you did?

[mdklatt]

I don't care if it was Pocono State Dental College.

[Auburn AD]Do they have any open dates next year?[/Auburn AD]

[Statalyzer]

[Auburn AD]Do they have any open dates next year?[/Auburn AD]

lmao

[caphorns]

We sure are throwing alot of stones lately. I don't think our Big 12 officiating lineup has improved much in 2006.

[Texas Golfer]

I am moved. Barry Alvarez's comment about the PAC-10 refs "looking out" for their own must be addressed. Sounds like the hosing Baylor got could have made a difference in the game, but certainly wasn't in the proportion of the hosing we got in Oregon. Those vaunted "non-preferential" PAC-10 refs are being shown to be the harlots of home and very preferential...

We need a national pool of refs, to be assigned outside of their conference on all intra-sectional non-conference games.

The Pac-10 is gloating about their superiority to the Big XII went they went 4-0 against us but it has been determined that the officials were the direct result of two of those wins (Oregon by 1 over OU and WSU by 2 over BU).

Something HAS to be done but, unfortunately, nothing will. Until something drastic happens to either the officials or the Pac-10, this cheating will continue. The Pac-10 benefits from this cheating and they won't stop it until they are forced to by the NCAA.

[Texas Golfer]

We sure are throwing alot of stones lately. I don't think our Big 12 officiating lineup has improved much in 2006.

But the Pac-10 is the only conference that demands their own refs at their home games.

[Scott D]

really the only recourse for college football fans to do would be to start paper and online petitions to the ncaa to put in place a rule stating referees from neutral conferences to do non conference games.

[bstuff1979]

Why slam Boren because he has some backbone. Besides what business of the naysayer's anyway. Go back to your "Horseshoe" dry up and blow away.

Hey, don't kill the messenger. I never even began to knock Boren, that was my buddy up in Ohio. I'm just trying to point out that the Pac 10 has had a reputation among Big 10 folks (of which I'm not a part of, I recieved my undergrad up in that area but came to my senses and got my masters at OU). If even the biggest ohio state homer calls what's going on w/ pac 10 refs, and in particular the OU-uo game, "fixed"...maybe it isn't such a bad idea to look into having the NCAA doing some digging. That's all I'm saying, and I have no intention of going back up to Ohio and drying up in "the shoe". If I have to pull for a big ten team, it would be Penn State...not the buckies...not in a billion years. They're too defensive when told that OU has more national titles.

[Sco]

I am under the impression that refs *are* graded after each game. And that the "better" refs get the "bigger" games. That's probably why Baylor got crap refs.

I'm also under the impression that the PAC 10 has a serious ref shortage going on. I heard that the refs from the OU-UO game actually reffed the ASU game last week even though they were "suspended" because of the shortage. Dunno if that's true.

They reffed the USC v. 'Zona game. Bunch of BS.

[Scott D]

They reffed the USC v. 'Zona game. Bunch of BS.

some of them did, the entire crew did not.

[Sco]

some of them did, the entire crew did not.

Well.... still...

[Sooner Schemer]

They're not really errors when they make those call on purpose.

[arlington]

Dawg that is correct, 2 officials who should have been suspended worked the SC/Zona game behind the "ref shortage" argument..Although since Oregon had a bye, i dont see why the crew could not have served there suspension, they were already one team down so it sounds like perfect math to be one crew down..

[ouwasp]

Big XII needs to "embargo" all football games schedule-wise for the Quack 10.

Maybe in all sports...

[birddog]

they gotta give the refs on the field a monitor so they can make the call themselves. and they need to let the refs review turnovers. it's not going to be a very good system for a long time at this rate. i think the oregon game has put the refs and the replay system under a big friggin microscope.

[Egeo]

IMHO before Baylor worries about officiating, maybe they should have to worry about bowl contention.
im not even sure how to reply to this

[Jewstin]

they gotta give the refs on the field a monitor so they can make the call themselves. and they need to let the refs review turnovers. it's not going to be a very good system for a long time at this rate. i think the oregon game has put the refs and the replay system under a big friggin microscope.

Well, then you have yet another conflict of interest because refs won't want to overturn their own calls.

This sort of thing has been discussed repeatedly by media types all around (JR Ross and Switzer both touched on this, as well) ... specifically, the relationship and hierarchy of the referee system in college football. It is frowned upon if a referee has a large number of calls overturned ... in fact, I think it counts against them in whatever grading system they employ (if any at all). You don't want to be the referee with the most overturned calls in your conference.

The Pac-10 talked repeatedly about how they believed in the integrity and ability of their referees, and I think this extends to the replay booth, especially if that person reviewing has a longstanding relationship with the officials down on the field. Their gut instinct might be to let a call stand because they "believe" in that person's ability to make the call ... (or, the more popular notion, they let a bad call stand simply because they don't want to cast them in a negative light by overturning it).

The more I look at the whole OU/Oregon debacle, the less "intentionally sinister" it seems to me. That doesn't make it any less wrong or more excusable, of course, but it does, however, speak volumes about the status of the officiating system we have and present a much deeper problem (on all levels, all the way up to the NFL, it would seem). It's obviously broken and has been for ages ... and has been for so long that it's worthlessness has become accepted as "part of the game" because people are either too cheap or too lazy to fix it.

Human beings aren't infallible, but they are inherently biased, no matter how objective they claim to me (kind of like journalists, heh) ... and it is silly to not even make an attempt to MINIMIZE that bias (bringing in refs from different conferences, or different parts of the country, or not having this silly buddy-buddy hierarchy and crew system).

With the revenue these conferences and schools bring in, and with all the potentiality of corporate sponsorship, I don't think it would be an impossible task to organize a centralized system of referees and reform the way we officiate, not only in college football, but in all sports. The thing is, most people will sit around and continue to watch sports and maintain this notion of purity and fairness no matter what happens, so, really, the organizations have no real incentive to make the effort.

Furthermore, anyone who actively participates with any of the leagues can't speak out against the officiating problem for fear of being handed a hefty fine. Journalists, especially ESPN, won't touch it, because they'll be hurting the image of a giant cash cow, directly affecting their livelihood ... and they'll probably end up at the doorsteps of litigation. Nobody has the pull or the balls to step up and challenge it ... and when somebody on the fringe does, you have hordes of others who step up and say, "hey, remember, it's just a game and it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things" (as they sit back and earn a salary from something they proclaim to be so unimportant). To me, on some levels, it's no different than something like the WWE. Granted, the games we're watching aren't scripted, but on some level, you know there are forces working against the purity of the competitive medium.

Everyone is looking the other way. We take it up the crapper because we don't want to hurt what we have.

To me, this is the officiating problem of high school and intramural athletics on STEROIDS. You get into the system because of who you know, not necessarily because of your abilities.

If we're to be expected to continue to regard our collegiate and professional sports as legitimate competitive venues, the powers that be should at least make an effort to remedy the flaws.

Anyways, lemme get off my soapbox about it. People probably won't even read this since it's buried in yet another thread. ;) The only reason I feel so strongly about it is because I spent several years competing on a professional circuit for video games here in America (the reason I'm 23 and still working on an undergraduate degree, heh). I witnessed it go from something very pure and what I considered to be one of the TRUEST competitive mediums to something watered down simply for the sake of entertainment value and dollar signs. And it pains me to no end to witness it happen in every sport to the applause of millions.

[OU_Sooners75]

The Pac-10 talked repeatedly about how they believed in the integrity and ability of their referees, and I think this extends to the replay booth, especially if that person reviewing has a longstanding relationship with the officials down on the field. Their gut instinct might be to let a call stand because they "believe" in that person's ability to make the call ... (or, the more popular notion, they let a bad call stand simply because they don't want to cast them in a negative light by overturning it).




Well, If they cannot do the job they are PAID to do with integerity....shouldnt they suffer the same result as you or I would at our job?

Yes, they should. A referee gets paid to ref each game....in fact they have meetings at least once a month, D-1A most likely more.

They have national referee camps and conventions. They are highly trained at what they do.

If they cannot do their job in an unbiased manner, then they should not be allowed to ref any game....no matter if it is a non-conference game or a conference game. (what happens if a ref is a fan of a particular school, or has ties to it?)

I say this....if a judge in a courtroom cannot sit in on a case where they know either the plantiff or the defendant, why should a referee? After all D-1A football is a billion dollar a year business!

[Jewstin]

I say this....if a judge in a courtroom cannot sit in on a case where they know either the plantiff or the defendant, why should a referee? After all D-1A football is a billion dollar a year business!

I think that's a GREAT point.

I agree with everything else you wrote, too. I'd love to have a job where if I monumentally screw up, it's just attributed to "human error" and I get a slap on the wrist (or, better yet, a year's paid absence).