So...no one finds it at the very least amusing, interesting or possibly very much a conflict of interest that this guy...this "Mr. I'm sorry I screwed Oklahoma" guy.... appears to reside in PORTLAND.....OREGON? My solution of employing a single Quality Control ref from say the east coast may have gone a long way in arresting this sort of inaccurate or inept at best, poor judgement by this ref. It's not that complicated. This one single postion would be the senior member of any ref crew and as I suggested this position alone would undergo the extensive background check and psychological profiling to determine any possible leanings other than complete neutrality. Exceptions could be made possibly if he was discovered to have a nephew graduated from PennSt for example so he could be placed accordingly.....by computer or otherwise in say west coast and not east coast games. It can be done and should be. These coaches get paid 2 million dollars a year to get it right and ahtletiic coffers funded mostly by the millions of dollars generated by football depend on the NCAA refs to get it right.
Well if you use PAC10 officals the chances are they are either going to be from Calif, Oregon or Washington. But certainly it doesn't look good. It's just like when JoePa complained that there was an inordinate number of B10 refs from Michigan. Do you have any idea what % of SEC refs are from Fla? Like I said I like the idea of neutral officals, but I just don't see it happening. For one I just doubt that conferences will want to give up their control. Just think there are 11 SEC schools not in the state of Fla!
Terry....again...we need only one of these "Quality Control" refs. Give him the authority to reverse and correct ALL calls including questionable penalties and I'll bet you would see a great improvement in getting what people would deem as a neutrally called game.
Yeah, until he makes a mistake and somebody finds a connection to one side or the other in his checkered past.
Some support for Mo! <r><URL url="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2006-09-20-refs-pools_x.htm"><LINK_TEXT text="http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ ... ools_x.htm">http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2006-09-20-refs-pools_x.htm</LINK_TEXT></URL></r>
Interesting, AJ...if it'd work and not be too unwieldy I think it would be great. Funding might be a problem...I sort of assume that larger conference officials are now paid more and have bigger budgets than smaller conferences...would all of the conferences now draw from the same pool, so that WAC and Conference USA would be using the same guys as the PAC10 and SEC? Would it involve a much bigger expense nationally if they are all paid the same? Or would there be a "tier" system where the larger conferences and ND draw mainly from one pool while smaller conferences would draw from another, and the officials would "work their way up" throught the tier system. And what would JoPa do do ensure that there aren't too many refs from Michigan in the national pool?
FWIW, this was posted on my Purdue list: "Regrettably, the replay official has been receiving death threats from some Oklahoma neanderthals. He is a 30-year veteran of the Pac-10, says he feels miserable about blowing the call, and is thinking about quitting. Sad."
I don't know if that is true. I would tend to believe that the pay is based upon geography. A guy from New Joisey ain't working for no Midwestern pay. I'm sure cost will be an issue, especially among the non BCS conferences better known as the have nots. If they go national, they should do it on a sliding scale.
Interesting, I didn't know that anybody had actually discussed this sort of reordering of the officals. Truthfully, I doubt it changes anything. The ultimate will be when holographic cameras are perfected, so that replay officals can actually step into the situation and walk around each disputed call and view it from any angle that they want, advancing it by nanoseconds if needed. Terry
Robot officals, they'd work cheap and could process information instantaneously, would have no loyalty, etc.
Another point brought up by a guy on the Purdue group: "I like the third conference policy but that doesn't work in reality. The reason is that you have to stay close to home and sometime a Big Ten game would get officiated by refs from the Ohio Valley Conference who just don't have the experience of top tier refs. Didn't we have a game recently like that and we did nothing but complain about this??"
Remember the Alamo Bowl? I think they used refs from the Southland Conference who screwed the proverbial pooch. Since ND is affiliated with the Big East, why don't they use BE refs for their home games?
Bobda, I may be in the minority, but I can't recall when in the past several years the refs have been an issue for an ND home game. I think Corey has a valid point questioning the lack of holding calls on the opponents, but I certainly don't feel that 2 or 3 or 4 holding calls would have made the difference last Saturday. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't care who refs the game as long as my team plays well enough to win. I also don't look to the refs as the reason when my team loses. Part of trying to raise my son to be a mature and sensible adult was teaching him that in any team sport governed by time or innings, you must look at everything that happens over the entire course of a game that affects the ultimate outcome. One so-called bad call or one error or one missed free throw is never the only factor in winning or losing.
Big East Refs, hate us and are incompetent!! To be fair I think all ND game should be officiated only by JO'Co, Corey, Krebs, Sid, and El Paso Tim. I'll do the replay in the booth. There wouldn't be a fairer more objective crew in the country. :lol:
Hmmm. Nice idea. You're on to something, Terry. Can I do the replay in the booth for the November games? :lol:
Here's a tidbit that would definitely make MCG's head explode if it was a Fla game. The Ref who made the call in the OU/Oregon game went to high school with Mike Bellotti! hmmmmmmm..