Why college football officiating needs public accountability

Everyone likes to complain about college football officiating. Here’s what can be done to fix it – more public accountability.

If you enjoy watching college football, you should. And if you enjoy the games, you shouldn’t be concerned only with which four teams are selected for the College Football Playoff. This season especially there’s just a handful of playoff contenders and then there’s All The Rest.

What becomes obvious week-to-week is that as we reach mid-November, the performances of teams can vary greatly. Some teams are playing for bowl eligibility; when those teams meet, there’s no warning about which team is the more hungry and/or ready. Teams with nothing to play for might surprise a complacent team that expects an easy victory.

Where fans should expect week-to-week consistency is the officiating. (Your Humble Correspondent can’t believe he just typed that. Including “consistency” and “officiating” in the same sentence is high on the “oxymoron” list.)

Despite just working one game each week, officiating crews are fighting through late-season slumps. Remember, they travel each weekend; they have “regular” jobs during the week; they are graded by fastidious video reviews that catch every out-of-position moment; they are reminded in weekly reports what parts of the over-written rule book they are failing to emphasize. Plus, each week, coaches send video clips to the conference office complaining about bad calls.

Look, the on-field striped shirts have a difficult, challenging job. There are eight officials. Each is assigned different player groups and parts of the field to watch. But there are 22 players – some using brute strength, others eye-blink speed. In the past decade, the game is played at a faster pace and teams use the entire width of the field. The rulebook is a complicated lawyer-ese designed to keep players safe and keep the offense from having a legalized edge over the defense and vice versa.

While the NCAA oversees rule changes and helps oversee points of emphasis each season, the officials who work in FBS are still regional. Anyone who watches games in a particular conference on a regular basis will see the same “white hats” (referees) who are in charge of the crews and who get more camera time than sideline reporters with their announcements of penalties and instant replay reviews.

Ah, yes, instant replay. The rhetorical question: Is officiating better or worse thanks to video reviews of bang-bang calls? The NCAA, following the NFL’s lead, went to instant replay reviews in 2006 in football and 10 years later added IR to select plays in college basketball.

The rationale when adopting replay was “get the call right.” Even with a dozen cameras supplying video for review, that still doesn’t happen.

After a dozen years, the football video review system continues to be a clown show. Four conferences have centralized video review centers in their offices to help sort out the reviews. However, as shown by the especially clownish Pac-12, that system has its flaws.

Fans watching games on HD big screens probably have just as good a view as the replay officials. However, the replays that directors/producers in the TV truck aren’t always the video that the replay officials get to see. When a ruling comes for the replay booth or center using information the fans don’t see, that doesn’t help with the credibility.

An added burden/responsibility for the officiating and replay crews has been the NCAA adding targeting calls to the rule book. Football is a violent sport and with offensive formations spreading the field, bigger, faster, stronger players are covering more ground at higher speeds. Dangerous collisions happen. Trying to limit those collisions is folly and the NCAA is only covering its own assets so it will have evidence it tried to make the game safer when it has to defend itself against inevitable CTE claims.

Officiating the targeting rule has included the use of replay. The refs are instructed to flag when in doubt and let the replay booth be the judge and jury. The eight striped shirts on the field default to “targeting” each time there’s a highlight hit. And that emphasis is impacting other parts of the game.

Saturday night in Lubbock in the fourth quarter, Texas Tech quarterback Jett Duffey scrambled and then slid. Texas linebacker Anthony Wheeler contacted Duffey when he was on the ground. Wheeler was flagged for targeting, which video review overturned.

However, it appeared the correct call should have been a personal foul for a late hit on a defenseless player. Instead of that call and then a video review for potential targeting, Wheeler wasn’t penalized at all. (The Red Raiders had been called for holding so their net gain would have been just five yards.)

At the end of Friday night’s Fresno State-Boise State game, a fourth-down measurement gave the Broncos a first down and allowed them to run a final play from victory formation. Anyone watching the game could plainly see the nose of the football was not touching the stick at the end of the chain.

Had the ball (correctly) gone over on downs to Fresno State, it’s unlikely the Bulldogs could have changed the outcome (a 24-17 Boise State victory). When a call is made that is obviously incorrect to any sighted person, the best remedy is for the higher-ups to review the situation and admit the mistake.

Instead, in this case, the Mountain West Conference gaslights the viewers, its fans and both teams. Here’s the statement it issued:

“While certain camera angles make it appear the ball was short of a first down, there are no perspectives which are directly perpendicular to the line to gain and no conclusive evidence that the line to gain was not in fact reached. It has been confirmed the spot, instant replay review and measurement processes were all executed correctly.”

This illustrates the disconnect and distrust fans have in regard to college football officiating. Do the officials cheat? No. Are they bought off by the big schools? No. Are they accurate most of the time? Yes; the Big 12, for instance, claims its ref’s grade out at the level of NFL officials. (That claim, though, could be considered damning with faint praise.)

What is lacking is accountability. Officials who make mistakes don’t need to be singled out by name. But why doesn’t each conference issue a report each Monday that lists any significant mistakes revealed by their grading system? And add an explanation of why/how the mistake was made. If it is an egregious error and an official or a crew is reprimanded or suspended, say so.

The coaches and the players are held responsible and accountable for their mistakes. There is no rational reason officials shouldn’t also be held to the same standards.