Bad calls...

TIDE-HSV

Senior Administrator
Staff member
Oct 13, 1999
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What could I possibly say toward it? I don't watch enough of your games to have an opinion about the quality of any calls or no calls. I guess all I can say is someone has to be at the bottom. I do find it very interesting that you've had a run there. Being a data geek I would love to dive in deeper.

Most of your games are officiated by SEC crews. It would be ridiculous to say they have any bias for or against Alabama. If there was any conspiracy involved I would think those behind it would want to favor their cash cow of Alabama. I bet every team you play says the officials are biased FOR you and that's why you win.

The officials really don't care who wins. They get paid the same regardless. They are evaluated on their calls and making incorrect calls either way would hurt their chances of postseason. Separately many of them are being evaluated by the NFL so even if there was some crazy conspiracy to favor one team it would destroy their chances of being hired by the NFL.

It's great banter for fan message boards but nothing more than that.

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I thought you might have some theory as to why the calls are so weighted against Bama for so many seasons in a row. I would agree that, if anything, you'd think we'd get the calls. We don't and the stats show it. The officiating has been biased against us now for almost the entire Saban run. It's not only the "no-call" status of our opponents and how sharply that contrasts with their play against other opponents, it's the fact that we ranked #32 in being called and we've ranked even higher in the past. I do have a theory but it's not very pretty for officials. FWIW, it's not a vast conspiracy. What it is is plain old human subjectivity - the unconscious tendency to lean against the big guy, the 400 lb gorilla, and lean for the underdog little guy. If you think about it, it's the only explanation remaining after conspiracies are eliminated and we exclude that our opponents magically sprout halos and wings. The subjectivity which has benefited our opponents the last several years, and cost us one national championship, is exactly the same subjectivity which you've been preaching and which makes many of us so uncomfortable. We all understand that every foul can't be called. However, when it's institutionalized and taught, it seems to result in a little too much of officials' playing god in determining if the foul impacts the play or not when it seems obvious to most that such a determination is humanly impossible...
 

IndyBison

1st Team
Dec 22, 2013
386
106
62
I'm curious as to how often you attend off-season rules/mechanics clinics? Are they run by the NCAA on a national level or are they conference based.
There are dozens of clinics around the country in the off-season. Most don't start until late February and run through early June. They are usually organized by senior or retired officials and are largely geographic. Some have developed positive reputations and will get people traveling from far distances. One of those is in Michigan. I've met officials from Norway and Germany there. Most are from Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois though. The clinicians will be NFL, B1G, and MAC officials and they'll bring in the CFO commissioner or Rogers Redding (former rules editor I mentioned earlier) as guests.

The D1 supervisors (probably 10-12 guys since many staffs combine multiple conferences) try to coordinate the message as much as possible so it's consistent. Rule changes and their application are discussed. A lot on mechanics and philosophies and communication. If training videos have been published by the CFO, they will be used as well. They range anywhere from 1 day to 3 days.

For guys trying to get into college officiating (usually start at D3 or NAIA level, JuCo only exists in a couple pockets around the country) or trying to move up they often look for clinics where the supervisors of the conference they want to work is most likely attending. Like anything there is a lot of networking and being visible when trying to move up.

Some of these clinics will have an on field portion, especially the ones that take place during Spring scrimmages. Clinicians will observe and provide immediate feedback to the officials both on the field and in film review after.

Regular study groups also occur during the off-season. We did a monthly one here in Indy and review rules quizzes and video. These are often D2/D3 guys helping newer officials. If you've ever been involved in mentoring or training, you can learn a lot by trying to help someone else learn.

I've been to clinics in Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota and Virginia. I try to hit at least 1 or 2 each year. Officials also try to work as many scrimmages in the Spring, both to get experience and to get feedback from those you are working with. I'm a D3 official but I've been fortunate to work scrimmages at IU, Purdue, Notre Dame, Ball State, and Miami, plus several FCS schools. I've worked with guys who worked your national championship game.

From mid July to early August each conference has their own clinic. These are more reviews of the schedule, procedures, and communication. There will be breakouts by position and/or crew and training video review as well although most will expect you to do a lot of that on your own time.

The NCAA itself doesn't put any of this on, but the CFO works closely with them through the rules committee and I guess functions as an arm of the NCAA. They officials are all hired by the conference and not the NCAA, and the pay comes from the home school.

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JDCrimson

Hall of Fame
Feb 12, 2006
5,346
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There are things I get about officiating. You can’t nor want to call a penalty on every play. You certainly understand the rules, how you apply them, and how it’s taught to be executed at camps, etc and that you can’t speak for how any other official applies the same training. I completely agree will all that. As Earle mentioned, and accept but don’t necessarily agree with, “that all the law ain’t in the books.” However, there is another theory that I subscribe to that “a million men can’t be wrong” but I see this theory being turned on its head more and more in football and it was abolished altogether in basketball a long time ago.

The problem is that philosophies have overcome updating rules to a changing game. This has been a big problem in basketball for decades just in how the games is played. And I think we can all agree that basketball officiating is the most horrendous application of the rules out there. It’s not good watch any game and you will see the continued disparity in FTs shot by a particular team or the home team.

Football officiating is becoming more like basketball officiating largely imo by using philosophies to respond to a changing game the pace of the play, presnap motions, make the game watchable on TV, etc that the rules aren’t currently designed to manage.

In the last 3 NC games and specifically the last few games I have watched Bama I have seen more uncalled offside penalties and lining up in the neutral zone than I can remember seeing in a long time. You may be correct better teams commit fewer action penalties. But I have seen a sharp increase in the last few years in uncalled formation penalties and those are the easiest ones to call in football. And those missed formation calls certainly should not be missed on the game’s biggest stage.

The biggest problem with the point of attack philosophy in today’s game is the offensive attack is more wide open with the spread formations and RPOs. You can still sort of use this philosophy in the run game situations. But this philosophy is getting genuinely abused in the passing game. Where is the point of attack on a passing play?

Defenses are taking this philosophy in college football and taking away reads and certain portions of the field by forcing the ball to go to 1 receiver who is cleanly defended or double teamed. Opposing teams rendered a QB virtually ineffective with the approach of holding and picking the 2nd and 3rd option routes.

And don’t get me started on illegal men downfield and how that call has utterly vanished from the rule book. I am not sure if they do but I can’t recall hearing but the officials should also be allowed to propose changes to the rules because it’s pretty obvious the approach to officiating is in catch up mode and fundamental play is suffering for it just like it has for years in basketball. Unfortunately it looks like the genie is out of the bottle.




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IndyBison

1st Team
Dec 22, 2013
386
106
62
Point of attack applies applies to running plays which also includes the run after catches and during luck returns. During kick returns the area impacted would be much larger because there are so many more players downfield from where the runner is. For example, if there is an egregious take down near the line of scrimmage by someone trying to block a gunner it would very likely be a foul. Holding by defensive players on eligible receivers prior to the pass would be fouls unless it's just before the pass is thrown to a different part of the field.

Ineligible players are considered downfield illegally if they are more than 3 yards downfield when the pass is released. The last word is critical. A lot of times I see complaints for that people will see linemen 5-6 yards downfield as the pass is in the air and assume it was missed. But if you stop the video when the pass is released, he's usually fine. I've seen linemen near receivers 10 yards downfield when the pass is caught and knew it had to be a foul. But when you stop the video they were fine when the ball was released. It's actually a tricky one to get because an official needs to be looking at two different players in different parts of the field at the same time and know exactly where the lineman was in relation to the line of scrimmage when the pass is released. That doesn't excuse it when it's missed, but I wanted to show why it is missed.

A couple years ago the rules committee passed a change only allowing them to be 1 yard downfield at the release. The movement behind it was the proliferation of RPO, and I believe Coach Saban was key voice. The rules oversight committee ultimately has to approve the rule changes, and they received enough push back from coaches to not approve that change. They did direct us though to call it much more strictly. I would say it's called incorrectly as much as it's not called incorrectly. It's just a tricky thing to get on the field due to a variety of factors involved to see it.

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TIDE-HSV

Senior Administrator
Staff member
Oct 13, 1999
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Point of attack applies applies to running plays which also includes the run after catches and during luck returns. During kick returns the area impacted would be much larger because there are so many more players downfield from where the runner is. For example, if there is an egregious take down near the line of scrimmage by someone trying to block a gunner it would very likely be a foul. Holding by defensive players on eligible receivers prior to the pass would be fouls unless it's just before the pass is thrown to a different part of the field.

Ineligible players are considered downfield illegally if they are more than 3 yards downfield when the pass is released. The last word is critical. A lot of times I see complaints for that people will see linemen 5-6 yards downfield as the pass is in the air and assume it was missed. But if you stop the video when the pass is released, he's usually fine. I've seen linemen near receivers 10 yards downfield when the pass is caught and knew it had to be a foul. But when you stop the video they were fine when the ball was released. It's actually a tricky one to get because an official needs to be looking at two different players in different parts of the field at the same time and know exactly where the lineman was in relation to the line of scrimmage when the pass is released. That doesn't excuse it when it's missed, but I wanted to show why it is missed.

A couple years ago the rules committee passed a change only allowing them to be 1 yard downfield at the release. The movement behind it was the proliferation of RPO, and I believe Coach Saban was key voice. The rules oversight committee ultimately has to approve the rule changes, and they received enough push back from coaches to not approve that change. They did direct us though to call it much more strictly. I would say it's called incorrectly as much as it's not called incorrectly. It's just a tricky thing to get on the field due to a variety of factors involved to see it.

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Do you think that reverting to the one yard rule would make your job as an official easier?
 

TIDE-HSV

Senior Administrator
Staff member
Oct 13, 1999
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The best numbers I've seen so far are the ones from teamrankings. Beyond that, it would take someone doing something like a research paper to come up with any meaningful data. The problem with sorting the penalties is even then it only tells us what actually was called, not what should have been called.

It's one of those situations where something sure does seem off, but I'd be lying if I said I could point my fingers at anything specific. I'm not buying the other teams prepare better though. Why on earth would they not have done that from 2010-2013?
And that's where the problem lied - the no-calls which have been benefiting all of our opponents. (While they complain about the bias in favor of us...)
 

RTR91

Super Moderator
Nov 23, 2007
39,407
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And that's where the problem lied - the no-calls which have been benefiting all of our opponents. (While they complain about the bias in favor of us...)
And for me, this is why I struggle with the grading system for officials. We see enough no-calls to cause me to question how strict the grading really is.
 

IndyBison

1st Team
Dec 22, 2013
386
106
62
Maybe a little but not significant. I think we would see less RPO so from that drinking it would happen less. You still though have to see two different players at the same time and know where one of those players is in relation to the line of scrimmage. Either way you also end up in a situation where the pass is caught in or behind the neutral zone. If that happens there is no foul because ineligible players can be downfield. 1 or 3 yards wouldn't change most of that.

Here's a good quiz question. What's the difference between the line of scrimmage and the neutral zone?

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IndyBison

1st Team
Dec 22, 2013
386
106
62
Gonna guess that the difference is arbitrary and up to the official's opinion.
LOL...nice try. Definitions are critical on the rules and if you don't know that you may not interpret a rule correctly.

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CB4

Hall of Fame
Aug 8, 2011
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Maybe a little but not significant. I think we would see less RPO so from that drinking it would happen less. You still though have to see two different players at the same time and know where one of those players is in relation to the line of scrimmage. Either way you also end up in a situation where the pass is caught in or behind the neutral zone. If that happens there is no foul because ineligible players can be downfield. 1 or 3 yards wouldn't change most of that.

Here's a good quiz question. What's the difference between the line of scrimmage and the neutral zone?

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I would say that the neutral zone is the area the width of the football that extends across the field from sideline to sideline.

I would define the LOS as a line directly in front of the football (also extends sideline to sideline) where play begins.
 

IndyBison

1st Team
Dec 22, 2013
386
106
62
I would say that the neutral zone is the area the width of the football that extends across the field from sideline to sideline.

I would define the LOS as a line directly in front of the football (also extends sideline to sideline) where play begins.
Very good guess. The trick part of this is there are two lines of scrimmage. One defined by either end of the ball. One is the offensive line of scrimmage and the other is defensive. The neutral zone is the space between the lines of scrimmage.

The expanded neutral zone adds 2 yards to the neutral zone in some cases. The best example is on scrimmage kicks. Touching by B (the team that starts on defense) beyond the neutral zone allows team A to legally recover the ball and be awarded a new series of downs (think of the punt touched or muffed by the receiving team and recovered by the kicking team). But if that touching is by a defensive player jumping just behind the line of scrimmage on a field goal and tipping the ball so it lands short of the goal line. Rather than allowing the kicking team to recover that and get a first down, the rule extends the neutral zone 2 yards so that touching is ignored for the purpose of awarding a new series to A.

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