Since it has been stated on this board by more than one obviously well informed Skybox member that I...MCG...was the only one who felt UF was frequently slighted by the refs I thought this topic on a Gator message board was pretty illuminating as to exactly how some Gator fans feel on the subject: http://www.gatorsportsforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=158440 Of course I am sure the same detractors here that made those statements feel that I...MCG... must have created all these unique IDs so as to appear to be in a plurality about these sentiments. :lol:
No team gets slighted by the refs. They dont favor anyone...they just happen to make bad calls at bad times. If you were reffin a game that quick...you would make you're share of bad calls as well. Every team has them go against them. I dont want to sound like a sore-loser and complain about the Auburn game....lets just win it and see where we end up at the end of the season.
Swamp....how about...somehow....even though there is no bias....UF gets penalized more than any team in the country and some very huge calls in huge rivalry games in recent years vs. Tenn, FSU and now Auburn just haven't gone their way. Just the breaks eh? You go and be a dissenter then on Gatorsports.
I agree completely...things havent gone our way in the last couple of years...whether it be against fsu..a personal foul against Tenn...but it happens. Complaining about it isnt going to help...lets just move on and hope we win the SEC. My son lives in Miami and is a Cane fan...he surely wasnt happy about that 2002 Fiest Bowl..but complaining about it isnt going to change the outcome. We have a great team with a bright future...be excited. Its great to be a Florida Gator!!
Complaining about it ensured that ACC refs will not set foot in Florida Field ever again as a potential "equalizer" for their homie noles. Not complaining about it ensures that incompetence and worse will flourish in SEC refereeing. Call me a naive optimist if you will but I truly feel that with a little training, bias screening and better geographical assigments for regional crews that the game of college football can achieve a whole new level of legitimacy. For me...the outcomes of the 2004 Tenn and the 2003 FSU games were just not legitimate. The Auburn call was a bad one but I feel there could have been better overall play by Leak and that his mistakes in the 4th quarter including the "fumble" did influence the game at least as much as that bad call. I have more trouble accepting that the replay official's son went to Auburn and that somehow the idiot thought it was OK for Meyer to burn his last time out to have the "fumble" reviewed when it was as obvious a reviewable play as any since the advent of replay. You can't explain away that last one and I haven't seen anyone here except for Gator Bill have the nads to admit that it was a very questionable move by the replay official. Yeah..that means you too IC.
The same thing was said about the ref that made the call against Miami. He was from ohio...hes an alumni...he had a ohio state jersey underneath his officials jersey..we've heard it all. I've heard all those complaints..but you cant prove them. We all know it was a questionable move...but who knows what the truth is.
For an NC game that means so much to fans of the two schools and to college football fans in general to have that guy with those ties reffing that game was inexcusable no matter what you think of the call. You can't tell me that the powers that be that selected the refs couldn't have done a better job than that.
MCG, do you believe that all humans are inherently dishonest? If you were a ref assigned to a Gator game, would you help them win?
Perhaps the Gator players are slightly undisciplined and that's why they get penalties? By the way, that doesn't make them bad people and their W-L record speaks for itself. In basketball you see a lot wide discrepancies in fouls. Some folks think the fix is in when it usually is one team is slower and less athletic than the other.
During their winning seasons when F$U was still great, they frequently lead the nation in penalties. Sometimes when you have great talent, you can be agressive on both sides of the ball, play through the whistle, etc. Result is a lot more penalites, but you have the talent to overcome it.
Tom, The answer to both questions is a resounding no. Does that mean EVERYONE is 100% honest and competent? You bet it doesn't. Just like every human being has their differences so do SEC refs and all refs for that matter. Some have the utmost integrity and I'm positive some do not. Some have great competence and some are marginal in their ability. I certainly don't believe all refs are identical clones of one another and I would question the logic of anyone who felt that way. One constant I do find irritating though is how clandestine and hush hush all conference offices are about their refs and the quality of jobs they do on the field...good or bad. It's like some sort of creed that conference management has a hard time being forthcoming and truthful about those things.
Let me ask you Tom....do you think it was incompetence or bias that caused Al Ford not to review Chris Leak's "fumble"?
... so MCG, someone like yourself, a dedicated Gator fan with obvious ties to the university, IS capable of objectively officiating a game? You have crucified the official who's only tie to Auburn is that his son went there... not him. Do you see where I'm going with this? If you could be fair in a Gator game, why couldn't anyone do the same? How would you determine which ones were honest and which were not? The only way I see to fix this is to severly punish multiple offenses. If a ref shows a trend of inaccurate calls, get rid of him... not suspend him, fire his tail! This pie in the sky system of finding Mother Theresa type officials is not obtainable.
"You have crucified the official who's only tie to Auburn is that his son went there... not him." Hey...my son goes to Western Michigan...I have been to games there and I love to see the Broncos win...a school that has some of my hard earned money. I should NOT be the replay official at a Western game or a Gator game for that matter. Why put me in that spot to begin with when you can get a guy whose son went to Ga Southern or S. Miss or Vandy or SouCar, etc. The SEC has only Auburn grads or guys whose sons went to Auburn that are replay officials? What's so complicated about finding a non-Auburn or Florida related replay ref to do that one game? You didn't answer my question about Ford making Meyer burn his last timeout. What could he have been thinking? If no bias was present then he should be fired from replay officiating because he obviously has no clue as to when to review a play.
The review came out to be "The call on the field stands" am I not correct? Then who is to say that he did not review it. His mind was probably made up before the challenge was made. Now if it WAS reversed, then you might have an argument that you should not have lost your challenge. Because you do not agree with the outcome does not mean that it was not reviewed. I don't have a dog in the fight so I will not hazard a guess as to the validity of the outcome. Sounds like an extremely grey area to me.
As I recall Auburn was of course in a rush to line up and get a play off and Ford really didn't have much time to review it until Meyer threw in the challenge. The SEC officials office actually did state later that Ford should have stopped play for review but no one offered any explanation as to why he didn't. That's the kind of thing that gets swept under the SEC rug.
There you go again... selectively taking the SEC office statements as gospel only when it sounds good to you.