Bad calls...

crimsonaudio said:

Worth noting that teams almost universally commit the fewest called fouls of the season when playing Alabama - a team that generally has more talent at most every position than the team they are facing.

I suppose one can dance around it all day long, but the facts are the facts - teams are called for fewer fouls when playing Alabama. Are they all suddenly executing at a higher level for sixty minutes despite playing Bama's superior athletes? Or is there a bias from the officials?

Occam's Razor leads me to the conclusion that there is referee bias - whether intentional or not...

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The Mike Pereiras and Bill LeMonniers of the world (two gentlemen I have been fortunate to meet) are used on broadcasts and they talk about rules and philosophies. Mike also shares them on Twitter but he gets blasted and accused of siding with the horrible officials. Ironically a lot of officials don't appreciate how critical he is. It's all about perspective.

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JTBama said:

I wonder why we paid them to let us go down 13-0...?....as I said before ...we must not have paid them enough

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We paid extra for that just to get GA’s and the rest of the country’s hopes up, so we could crush them! It’s what the Evil Empire does! Thanks

My conclusion about this thread:

Alabama is 126-14 with 5 National Championships since the start of the 2008 regular season. That is really remarkable considering that they have to beat their opponents and the officials.

Cheers to #18 in 2018 and so forth!

CapitalTider said:

We paid extra for that just to get GA’s and the rest of the country’s hopes up, so we could crush them! It’s what the Evil Empire does! Thanks

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Well for now on, I'd prefer not to give them any extra incentives to put us in a hole

colbysullivan said:

Traveling has nothing to do with steps?!?!?

Ok, I’m out...

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From NCAA Basketball Rules:

Section 5. Traveling
Art. 1. A player shall not travel with the ball.
Art. 2. Traveling occurs when a player holding the ball moves a foot or both
feet in any direction in excess of prescribed limits described in this section.
Art. 3. A player who catches the ball with both feet on the playing court may
pivot, using either foot. When one foot is lifted, the other is the pivot foot.
Art. 4. A player who catches the ball while moving or ends a dribble may
stop and establish a pivot foot as follows:
a. When both feet are off the playing court and the player lands:
1. Simultaneously on both feet, either may be the pivot foot;
2. On one foot followed by the other, the first foot to touch shall be
the pivot foot;
3. On one foot, the player may jump off that foot and simultaneously
land on both, in which case neither foot can be the pivot foot.
b. When one foot is on the playing court:
1. That foot shall be the pivot foot when the other foot touches in a step;
2. The player may jump off that foot and simultaneously land on both,
in which case neither foot can then be the pivot foot.
Art. 5. After coming to a stop and establishing the pivot foot:
a. The pivot foot may be lifted, but not returned to the playing court,
before the ball is released on a pass or try for goal;
b. The pivot foot shall not be lifted before the ball is released to start a dribble.
Art. 6. After coming to a stop when neither foot can be the pivot foot:
a. One or both feet may be lifted, but may not be returned to the playing
court, before the ball is released on a pass or try for goal;
b. Neither foot shall be lifted, before the ball is released, to start a dribble.
Art. 7. It is traveling when a player falls to the playing court while holding
the ball without maintaining a pivot foot.

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Could you guys watch the game winning td run of GA vs Ok? If I'm not mistaken number 87 for Georgia holds OK's linebacker and he is unable to make the tackle. Maybe if the refs had called it correctly Ga may not have even been at the NCG. Weird how I don't see Georgia fans mention it but I bet a bunch of OK fans saw it.

TUSCALOOSAHONOR said:

Could you guys watch the game winning td run of GA vs Ok? If I'm not mistaken number 87 for Georgia holds OK's linebacker and he is unable to make the tackle. Maybe if the refs had called it correctly Ga may not have even been at the NCG. Weird how I don't see Georgia fans mention it but I bet a bunch of OK fans saw it.

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Very possible hold. Hard to tell for sure from the only view I could find but I'm still looking. Here it is.

https://youtu.be/5wHM85WHUN0

This is good for a discussion on keys. On every play there are 5 eligible receivers and 5 wing and deep officials. So they each key on one receiver at the snap and then switch if necessary as the play develops. On all plays the field judge and side judge (deep sideline officials) have the widest guys on their side. The formation is balanced with two set eligibles on either side. In that case the back judge takes the inside guy on the line judge (near) sideline. The linesman (far LOS official) has the inside guy on his side (#87). The line judge will have the back who ends up in motion.

Once the motion starts though the key will be based on which side of the snapper he's on. None of these receivers are pressed so these 5 officials will actually start with a tackle on their side to read pass/run. In this case you have a run read based on the initial movement of the tackles (if you played defense you probably did the same thing). Based on the blocking and the initial movement of the back the point of attack becomes the wide side of the left tackle.

The H is going to come off his initial key and go to the motion guy (#18). The back judge should then switch and pick up the first guy coming downfield on that side but not the widest guy. That means he should pick up the block by #87. Depending on when he gets there he may not see the entire thing but that shouldn't be an issue here. At the B22 at the 0:03 mark the TE is now definitely beat and should be very suspect. We call this "the player with the brick in his hand."

From this angle I can't tell for sure if 87 does grab the defender or the defender just took a bad initial angle and adjusted too late. The end zone view here would be helpful. For the back judge though if he had that same question because he couldn't tell for sure he's going to pass. You don't want to guess. It happens and it usually gets you in trouble. The downgrade for an incorrect call is bigger than the downgrade for an incorrect no call.

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IndyBison said:

I'm sure there are many examples where police enforce laws with done judgement and philosophy. One example would be speed limit. If the speed limit is 55 and you are going 56 are they going to automatically give you a ticket? No. It's very unlikely.

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I see you have never been to PA. :biggrin2:

The first time I returned to that dump, after a 30-year hiatus, I was stunned by the HUGE signs they had, announcing the various fines for speeding. Things like "56-58 MPH = $X" and "59-60 = $XX", and so on. No margin for error, and increasingly steep fines, with tighter windows for enforcement of each bracket. While proudly announcing that they used "Radar: For Your Protection."

Luckily, the next time I had to go there the signs were down. Guess they came to their senses that actually telling the truth was bad for bidnis. (IOW, I suspect the fines were just as bad. They just didn't want to scare you off from driving there.)

Anyway....................back to the real subject.

I would like to ask our guest if he has noticed, at the meetings that he attends, if he finds that refs from other conferences have differences in how they make the decision to call a penalty. IOW, do they tend to use different things to key in on?

As he mentioned, coaches help to develop the rules, and therefore should know what they are. And more importantly, how to evade getting calls against them. Which leads to the possibility that certain teams from certain conferences know they can get away with more "stuff" when they play a bowl game against a team from a conference where that kind of "stuff" is frowned upon.

A very popular "conspiracy theory", especially around here!

B1GTide said:

I found it interesting that the coaches in the Film Room broadcast all agreed that the officials were not going to call things like holding in these games, so they all advised their teams in bowl games to try to get away with as much as they could. Grab in the secondary, hold on the LOS, etc. So the coaches know this and build it into their game plans in games like this. They said, essentially, go as far as you can and we can "dial it back" when we see what they will be calling in the game.

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Certainly, Clempson did this with a vengeance in 2015 and '16. Worked pretty well for them both times.......

cuda.1973 said:

Anyway....................back to the real subject.

I would like to ask our guest if he has noticed, at the meetings that he attends, if he finds that refs from other conferences have differences in how they make the decision to call a penalty. IOW, do they tend to use different things to key in on?

As he mentioned, coaches help to develop the rules, and therefore should know what they are. And more importantly, how to evade getting calls against them. Which leads to the possibility that certain teams from certain conferences know they can get away with more "stuff" when they play a bowl game against a team from a conference where that kind of "stuff" is frowned upon.

A very popular "conspiracy theory", especially around here!

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There will always be some minor variation between crews and conferences in some things, but the CFO was created several years ago to try to drive more consistency between conferences. For example, I talked to a guy in another conference who said they have the back judge take the motion guy at the snap. Our conference has the short wing take him. That's not critical though as long as everyone is covered and the crew is on the same page. That's something we usually discuss in our pregame. Crews are at the stadium about 3 hours prior to kick off and take the field an hour before so there are 2 hours to meet and get dressed.

Things like philosophies on holds and PI are pretty standard. There will still always be disagreements between officials. We have some fun debates during film review sessions over whether some calls were correct. I often say calls aren't always right or wrong. They are just calls.

One potential difference though could be the timing of a hold or block in the back. I've heard some conferences want those called if they are near the tackle even if they happen about the same time as the tackle. They didn't impact the play at all because that player or someone else was already making the tackle. In that example though the offending coach really had no complaint because his guy shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. The bigger potential gripe will come from the other coach if you don't call it. But he knows there was no advantage. He just wants some free yards. Can't fault him for that.

But the big stuff should be consistent from conference to conference. I'm sure there could be some renegade guy like Donaghy out there but any missed calls are so unlikely to involve conscious bias and pretty unlikely to involve subconscious bias. I would be shocked if there was ever any direction from higher up to the crew to favor one team over another. The consequences of that would be devastating to sport in general. It really is amazing how you can remove emotion from a game you are working and just look at each play as a separate challenge between two teams. It's not uncommon for me to forget which team is in which jersey. I just know I have a team in a white jersey and a team in a blue jersey. I sometimes forget the score.

Sorry for the long posts. As you can tell I love this game and my small role in it. I'm still a fan too but I don't get as passionate about the outcome. I will admit though I jumped out of my chair when Diggs caught that pass Sunday night and had clear sailing into the end zone to win for the Vikings.

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Like the quote...Love the use of Occam's Razor...My 8 & 13 have been taught that "principle"...strong in my house. RTR!!!

crimsonaudio said:

Worth noting that teams almost universally commit the fewest called fouls of the season when playing Alabama - a team that generally has more talent at most every position than the team they are facing.

I suppose one can dance around it all day long, but the facts are the facts - teams are called for fewer fouls when playing Alabama. Are they all suddenly executing at a higher level for sixty minutes despite playing Bama's superior athletes? Or is there a bias from the officials?

Occam's Razor leads me to the conclusion that there is referee bias - whether intentional or not...

Click to expand...

BradtheImpaler said:

I teach eighth grade Social Studies, and this reminds me a lot of what I was teaching my students yesterday. I gave them a literacy test used in Louisiana up until the 1960s, and they were incredibly frustrated by the fact that I could arbitrarily call an answer incorrect based on my own prejudices.

This is what this "philosophical" approach sounds like. Of course, we've seen this borne out in the fact that Alabama is consistently ranked at the bottom of FBS schools when it comes to penalties called on its opponents. Thank you for confirming exactly what we have been suspicious of for the last decade or so.

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AMEN!!!!

IndyBison said:

Very possible hold. Hard to tell for sure from the only view I could find but I'm still looking. Here it is.

https://youtu.be/5wHM85WHUN0

This is good for a discussion on keys. On every play there are 5 eligible receivers and 5 wing and deep officials. So they each key on one receiver at the snap and then switch if necessary as the play develops. On all plays the field judge and side judge (deep sideline officials) have the widest guys on their side. The formation is balanced with two set eligibles on either side. In that case the back judge takes the inside guy on the line judge (near) sideline. The linesman (far LOS official) has the inside guy on his side (#87). The line judge will have the back who ends up in motion.

Once the motion starts though the key will be based on which side of the snapper he's on. None of these receivers are pressed so these 5 officials will actually start with a tackle on their side to read pass/run. In this case you have a run read based on the initial movement of the tackles (if you played defense you probably did the same thing). Based on the blocking and the initial movement of the back the point of attack becomes the wide side of the left tackle.

The H is going to come off his initial key and go to the motion guy (#18). The back judge should then switch and pick up the first guy coming downfield on that side but not the widest guy. That means he should pick up the block by #87. Depending on when he gets there he may not see the entire thing but that shouldn't be an issue here. At the B22 at the 0:03 mark the TE is now definitely beat and should be very suspect. We call this "the player with the brick in his hand."

From this angle I can't tell for sure if 87 does grab the defender or the defender just took a bad initial angle and adjusted too late. The end zone view here would be helpful. For the back judge though if he had that same question because he couldn't tell for sure he's going to pass. You don't want to guess. It happens and it usually gets you in trouble. The downgrade for an incorrect call is bigger than the downgrade for an incorrect no call.

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The best view is from behind where you can actually see when #87 releases his hold on the linebacker . I saw another video of Ga fans reactions that shows the run from the endzone. In it you see 87 not celebrating but looking around for a flag.
Just goes to show you don't call out refs/calls in one game before your own back yard is straight.

I was eating lunch at a place yesterday and heard someone talking about the bad call on the punt block in the championship game and how that was a game changer or something to that effect. If someone brings this up with me, I'll ask them if they would have liked for that play to have been called correctly by the refs and then explain from there because surely they would want the correct call and not just a non-call... I don't think 10 yards difference in where the ball was punted from would be a game-changer but who knows?

IndyBison said:

That was an interesting fact. I'm a data geek so I love seeing thinks like that. I would love to try to figure out any other patterns.

One thing I have seen is generally better teams commit fewer fouls. Alabama generally plays a very good schedule so you are also playing other really good teams. I would expect to be at the bottom of both lists. To be the very bottom that many times in interesting. I can pretty confidently say it's not a coordinated, planned thing, but I think it does raise a very interesting question.

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Just for fun - The NCAA rates schedules each year, and without debating the merits of the list, they say the toughest schedules last year (that is, the programs who played the most and "best" teams) falls our like this:
https://stats.ncaa.org/rankings?sport_code=MFB&division=11

1. Maryland
2. Georgia
3. Notre Dame
4. aubarn
5. Iowa

So, hypothetically, if playing "a very good schedule" should mean that our opponents would not commit as many penalties, then you'd think that all these teams would somewhere around the bottom of "Opponent Penalties". Right?

But looking at Opponent Penalties - https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/opponent-penalties-per-game we see a slightly Different story:

Maryland - #64
Georgia - #89
Notre Dame - #40
aubarn - #47
Iowa - #52

So, only ONE (Georgia) is even in the bottom HALF of opponent penalties..... Go figure, huh?

And looking from the other side - do better teams commit fewer penalties? Now, a couple things - I really do think its a sign of a great team to NOT commit many penalties, and that was a hallmark of Saban's Alabama teams prior to 2014.... AND, lets ignore for a second the difference between COMMITTING penalties and being CALLED for penalties....

But the final AP poll says these were the "best teams" last season:

1. Alabama
2. Georgia
3. OU
4. Clem
5. O$U

So IF we accept that these were all (at a minimum) "pretty good" teams - we'd expect most of them to rate pretty well in terms of their own penalties, right?

Penalties per game, per the NCAA -

Alabama - #31
Georgia - #82
OU - #61
Clem - #29
O$U - #101.

But only two of the five even in the Top-50 of fewest penalties per game.

So, gosh....

I said it was in general, not an absolute. I know our crew usually has fewer flags when we have two good teams because they are more disciplined. There are some teams though that are good but can get chippy especially if playing a rival. That can impact the number and especially yardage total of penalties.

Your sample size is fairly small. I wonder if the data would show anything if you took the average penalty yardage of teams in the first quadrant, second quadrant, etc. Same for opponents yardage based on strength of schedule.

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CapitalTider said:

We paid extra for that just to get GA’s and the rest of the country’s hopes up, so we could crush them! It’s what the Evil Empire does! Thanks

Click to expand...

Actually, ESPN paid for that to get the ratings up before we dropped the hammer.

Occam's Razor states that the simplest answer to all the observed facts is probably correct. If so, is it more likely that:

1) All the refs in all the games we play are biased (consciously or unconsciously) against Alabama, or
2) Somebody is actually listening to Corso when he says that to beat Bama, you can't give them cheap yards.

Personally, if I was coaching against us, I would do everything in my power to eliminate every cheap penalty I could. Everybody brings their A game when they play us, and that level of focus has an effect on stupid penalties.