Follow-up answers...
1) Vick/Manziel - So far, they've both won about the same number of things relative to championships: nothing. Although Tech did win the Big East with Vick (and we can debate the importance of that accomplishment outside of the QB discussion). The difference between Vick winning with Virginia Tech and Manziel winning at Texas A&M is that Virginia Tech actually played defense and special teams. Texas A&M wins because of Manziel, 3-4 skill guys and a better-than-average offensive line -- and does it in the SEC. Everyone has their opinion on what constitutes "greatest" when all positions are being discussed, but I'll put it like this: If you told me I was going to put a college football team together from the ground up via some kind of draft, and I got to draft any COLLEGE (throw out NFL resumes here) player from any era to build around, I take Manziel and build around him. The only other guy I'd consider drafting in my top slot would be Tim Tebow, mostly for what he would bring from a leadership perspective, and I'm not saying he's the No. 2 QB or player of all time because he was neither.
2) Officiating - I'm going to answer this from two perspectives. One, I want to address the call on Clinton-Dix. Unfortunately, we created this mess when we got religion over the issue of concussions. I don't fault the call, even though it was terrible. I fault the fact that replay is not authorized to overturn the entire call. Concussions equal lawsuits equal billions of dollars potentially walking out the door for the NCAA, so every official that teams have this year will be looking for that exact thing. Football is violent and physical, no one is forced to play the sport and no one plays the sport without knowing the risks. Spearing has been against the rules for years, but was never called and now we have this. In my opinion, you either let replay have authority over the entire play, or you don't eject anyone unless it's both targeting AND the guy you hit can't come back to the game himself. Let's quit pretending football is friendly. If you don't want your kids exposed to this, don't let them play. Period.
Now, as to the job the Tom Ritter crew did: They missed calls on both sides. Alabama was a huge beneficiary of the 12-on-the-field call on the punt because it should have been 15 yards and a first down. I don't know why A&M didn't take the five and go for it on 4th-and-1 anyway, because Alabama couldn't stop a bag of feathers at that point in the game. Refs said he joined after the play but he was already out there. I think that was a makeup call of sorts because it followed the Clinton-Dix penalty. Holding missed on both sides happens from every crew in every game. I don't even talk about those anymore because (a) it doesn't change anything and (b) TV has the benefit of unobstructed replays from 20 angles in slow-motion that refs on the field never see. The two calls to object to from an Alabama perspective were the two catches where the receiver went out of bounds and came back in. The one over Fulton on the far sideline could have gone either way, and if I can't clearly object to it after seeing the replay three times then I'm not going to bust a ref's chops over it. The one on the near sideline, though, was a blown call. What really was confusing to me is that both are booth-reviewable. Remember back about 6-7 years to the controversial win over Ole Miss in Oxford, when Lionel Mitchell may or may not have run a guy OOB, that play was reviewed for 10 minutes. Both teams got hit for procedure penalties that were borderline, but some crews call that tighter than others and this crew is consistently tight on that call, so it comes down to a pitcher knowing which umpire is calling balls and strikes that day and adjusting accordingly. Basically, I was neutral on how they did, and the most egregious missed call (Clinton-Dix) is the fault of the system.
