Wake Forest had a 27-21 lead against Ole Miss late in the game with Ole Miss driving. On third down, Jevan Snead attempts to throw to the back of the end zone and gets drilled. His arm is hit as he threw (not the ball exactly because that would count as a tip) and it lands toward the front of the end zone. A receiver in the back of the end zone is hit to the ground and a flag is thrown...pass interference. The receiver could not have caught the ball even if he had arms and hands as big as The Great Khali. Yet it was pass interference. Ole Miss goes on to score a touchdown on that drive and take the 28-27 lead with only 1:01 left to play. Luckily for Wake Forest they were able to hit a 41-yard field goal to win the game 30-28.
Midway through the 4th quarter in South Bend, San Diego State was knocking on the door step, as an Aztec is entering the end zone he is hit by a Notre Dame defender and the ball comes loose and lands outside the end zone, is picked up by a Notre Dame player and once he is tackled the ref signals a touchback. The replay suggested that the SDSU player may have actually broken the plane but what it also showed was that the ball landed in the field of play. It never got into the end zone. As such, it never should have been a touchback. It was picked up in the field of play and the Irish player was tackled. They should have at best had the ball at the one yard line and at worst it should have been a touchdown for SDSU. Instead Notre Dame got the ball at the 20 and promptly went down and scored a touchdown to take the 14-13 lead which would be all they would need to win. But make no mistake, the refs call changed the course of that game.
Finally, the worst play happened to Washington. They played a tight back and forth game with BYU and were trailing 28-21 with little time left on the clock. Jake Locker engineered a terrific drive which culminated in his touchdown run with only 2 seconds to play. Then the laundry came on the field. In his excitement from driving the length of the field and scoring the game tying touchdown as time expired, Jake Locker threw his hands in the air and in doing so tossed the ball toward the back of the end zone. Excessive celebration. 15-yard penalty making them kick the extra point from the 18, and it was blocked. BYU wins 28-27. As one announcer said, "This loss rests squarely on the shoulders of the referees."
The NCAA has tried to cut down on celebrations for the past few years. You can't spike the ball. You can't do pre-planned celebration. You can't do anything that would single you out and draw attention to you as an individual. You can get excited as long as you don't get too excited.
Jake Locker did not spike the ball. He did not do a pre-planned celebration. He did not try to single himself out. In fact, when he jumped up, the first thing he did was look for his fellow Huskies and start chest-bumping and helmet slapping. One could say that he did everything that the NCAA is looking for. Not rubbing it in. Not over celebrating. Yet he was flagged for excessive celebration. It was truly sad to see Washington's hard work and excellent play get penalized by flag-happy stripes.
The pattern is alarming. The amount of game changing bad calls seems to be expanding. Maybe its because of the exposure that games get now. With the introduction of things like ESPN360.com and the Big Ten Network there are record numbers of college football games on television. Refs know that everything they do is being scrutinized and diagnosed and I think sometimes they get the jitters as much as a true freshman quarterback stepping into the Big House for the first time as a visitor. Maybe more training has to be done. Maybe these guys just aren't really trying. I don't know. But when even the replay officials can't get it right (see Notre Dame), something needs to be changed. The guys in the stripes are there to make sure that the game is played within the rules so that the better team wins the game. They are referees not judges, they are not supposed to decide the outcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment