Now we have The General checking in to render his opinion: Knight tweaks OU over Oregon complaints Associated Press OKLAHOMA CITY -- Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight, whose Red Raiders lost to Oklahoma on a controversial call three years ago, said he knows how fans feel about wanting a forfeit after OU's loss to Oregon on Saturday. Knight called for Oklahoma to forfeit its basketball game with Tech on Jan. 20, 2003, when the Sooners won 69-64 in overtime at Norman after two clock controversies in the final seconds of regulation. Video replay later showed the game clock started late after OU in-bounded the ball on the game-tying drive. "Maybe now those people at Oklahoma understand what I was talking about," Knight told The Oklahoman. "Had Oklahoma forfeited that game against us like I suggested, they would have gotten far more positive publicity out of that than if they had gone to the Final Four that year. Now I guess the 'duck' is swimming in the other pond." Oregon scored two touchdowns late to beat Oklahoma 34-33, including the game-winner that came after the Ducks recovered an onside kick. Video replay showed Oregon touched the ball before it went the required 10 yards, but the replay official did not overturn the call. The replay official, Gordon Riese, who was suspended by the Pac-10 for one game, requested a leave of absence for the remainder of the season, the league announced Wednesday.
"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.." Just got through wiping my brains off the ceiling because you are correct...this little tidbit does blow my mind. Since I FIRST came out with the idea of a prequalified "neutral" Quality Control ref I have read many similar ideas proposed by different writers across the country. The whole idea is to give this guy the power and to especially put him through a rigorous "proof of neutrality test". NO way of course this guy in Oregon could have remotely passed such a test for any PAC 10 game much less an Oregon game.
http://www.gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060923/GATORS01/209230359 Joe Pa has got it right. "I'd like to see the officiating become standard," Penn State coach Joe Paterno said. "I think that a national pool of officials would be a start. I don't see anything wrong with eliminating mistakes or eliminating attitudes." I know this kind of thinking just rankles all of you "take the high road" skyboxers who never have much sympathy or empathy when Florida is victimized by poor officiating. I think Joe Pa's integrity and knowledge of CFB goes unquestioned so if he thinks as I do that there should be no official's mistakes allowed if possible that affect a game's outcome and that referee's attitudes for or against a particular team just well may be an insidious part of the game then my "rants" as Bill likes to so often..too often refer to just may be valid arguments in Joe Pa's viewpoint.
I don't think you'll get any argument from ND fans that there has to be a better system to eliminate at the very least the appearance of impropriety. Wheter it is Michigan residents dominating the B10 officals, or in the SEC case too many refs from old south states that don't see UF as one of them. Or ND fans who feel that B10 refs basically hate us and have little incentive to give us a totally fair shake. The thing that is bringing this whole thing to a head is the presence of the TV camera everywhere, better and better stop action to show bad calls. I don't look for it to be easy to do but I do look for changes to start comming in the next few years.
Is there anyone in the audience who still wants to make an issue of the lack of holding calls by Big 10 officials on our Big 10 opponents? :twisted:
Sid maybe that's part of the "attitude" that Joe Pa refers to. Since PSU is a late addition to the Big Ten party maybe he feels the Lions are looked at as a redheaded stepchild by the traditional Big Ten refs. And yes Terry in spite of the rancor it seems to create around here I do strongly feel that the state of Florida has not been looked at by the other SEC states as part of the southern brotherhood and yes while some of these SEC refs may be PC forward thinking individuals I contend there is a still an old south mentality amongst a significant number of these good ole boys and Florida is viewed by them as elitist.
Sid I know you won't like this but those hacks didn't call a holding penalty till the 3rd qtr after MSU went up 38-14 and I guarantee you that they figured they were safe to call a few so that their stats would look ok.
MCG wrote: Not true Dave. I would love to find a way to eliminate bad calls. I think you may be on to something with that article. :wink: What you fail to visualize is that we... well, do you remember the story of the boy who cried wolf? The town's people knew that there was a danger of wolves. However, the boy had cried wolf too many times and nobody wanted to listen anymore. When it does not make a difference in the game, don't harp on the non-issue. When it does, ala Oregon/Oklahoma, let 'er rip. You saw me mention a bad call or two today. Nobody jumped on me about it because I don't harp on it. When it did not make a difference, I dropped it. People make mistakes. We can not eliminate mistakes.
The Prince of Paranoia strikes again. MCG, it may surprise you, or not, to know that except for the good skyboxers here, including you, I wouldn't care about Florida one way or the other. I'm sure many non-ND skyboxers feel the same about ND. You should be thankful that Bill is here to counter your rants. Yes, they are rants. Otherwise, you would be the only regular Florida contributor, which certainly would create a different vision for the non-FL skyboxers. Bill's loyalty is every bit as strong as yours, but he happens to view the games and college football in general through a different pair of glasses. I consider it a good point-counterpoint to the general discussion, and it has increased my respect for the Florida program. All that said, I agree with Tom in comparing your "victim" rants to the boy who cried wolf. They are tiresome, to say the least.
Terry, you are hopeless on this issue. Henceforth, when you speak on this topic, I'm going to refer to you as MCG Jr. :lol:
Sid, you and Tom have your own opinions. I have mine. If I am crying wolf about Florida's last two games in Knoxville then the chicken coop is empty and the wolf is full of chicken. The current OU-Oregon fall out seems to have started a movement in CFB that hopefully will lead to less "rants" from me in the future and more competently called football games with legitimate outcomes. When Bob Stoops says he will not play a PAC 10 team again with PAC 10 refs and in fact will cancel a scheduled game with Washington because of it he has joined the MCG club as well. When Marshall's coach refused to ever play at an ACC school again he has joined the MCG club. There are those dreamers who just believe that all refs are "doing the best they can" and that their mistakes have no bearing on a game's outcome. Then there are realists who feel otherwise.
Dave, you missed my point entirely. I was not saying that you are crying wolf in that your observations are incorrect. I was comparing the complacency (read couldn’t give a $hit less) of those township residents to that of the majority of the readers here. True or not, they have heard it ad nauseam and no longer care. I have been trying for two years now to get you to understand that we see bad calls as well. We see bad no-calls. We scream about them WHEN THEY MATTER! This year, Florida won. It just simply matters not whether there were bad calls against Florida. You won the game. Griping about bad calls when you win lessens the chance of anyone giving any legitimacy to claims of bad calls when you lose. Similar to “WOLF!!!!!!!”.
Tom, I see your point. However, as in business if you see bad habits by an employee that otherwise could ruin some key company objectives and that employee's future performance you feel an immediate need to correct those habits even if so far those bad habits have not yet led that employee to complete failure. Maybe you and I will always view 2004 in K-ville completely different but the refs failed that night to do their job and the game's outcome was affected. I'm looking for an improvement not just at K-ville but in the quality of SEC officiating in general and I still have concerns that improvement is not there. What I saw at Auburn with LSU for example concerns me because there was much more than the one call on pass interference (that the SEC head of officials has said correctly went to Auburn). If you watched that game almost every single call that could have gone either way went to the home team and some were very questionable. I have seen home cooking by the refs way too many times in games UF has had at Auburn in the past and for the SEC head of officials to gloss over how that LSU game was called will not solve the problem. A national movement to improve officiating may just do the trick however and one nice development is that any ref calling a game should feel now that his decisions on the field in a high profile game will be highly scrutinized on a national scale so he had better work a little harder to get it right and call it in a neutral fashion.