I suppose this is the thread to vent my frustration about the officiating.
I have always been bothered when "letting guys play" turns into a chance to break the established rules willy nilly. It's one thing to take a strategic penalty - it's something else altogether for the refs to swallow the whistle such that mugging becomes the norm for the game. That's true in football as well as basketball - see the foul on Trevor Releford at the end of the Creighton game a few years back.
With that said - what happened last night was a travesty. Someone - I believe it was rgw - posted some time back that the playoff didn't take into account the regional nature of CFB. I agreed heartily with this, and I think last night's officiating debacle is evidence of that. First off, this is the same crew that botched the Cal/Texas game, so I'm at a loss to understand how they were able to run a game of this magnitude. With that said, these refs brought their Big 12 culture with them - which means they were going to let receivers behave like MMA fighters all night long. Kudos to Clemson for picking up on this, but what on earth are we supposed to do here? The referees make it plain that they won't call an established rule and Saban can do nothing about it. This is insane - and every media jackleg who would tell Bama fans to not whine about it can go jump in the Black Warrior River. That goes double for local media who should be willing - on occasion - to carry water for the home team.
As to the criticism of the defense, or the notion that we got "torched." I can buy that, but up to a point. I know this gets into some weird, Malcolm Gladwell territory, but clearly sometimes a QB/WR tandem get into a zone that couldn't be broken by JJ Watt, Ed Reed and Darelle Revis. I don't know what you do about it, but when OPI isn't going to be called all the live long night, all you can do is throw your hands up. Even Michael Wilbon was tweeting about the picks last night, and I'll be curious to see if anyone the national media who isn't committed to carrying water for Clemson will come out and say something about it.
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