Ref Poll
- Thread starter Obliviax
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The PI on Dotson doesn't get called if they are corrupt.
The poll choices are too broad to be meaningful. There are many incompetent officials and some corrupt ones.
Further, an entire crew can appear incompetently corrupt when conference officiating supervisors instruct the Referees (crew chiefs) what calls they want to emphasize against certain teams. The Ref/Crew Chiefs then share this guidance with their crews, pre-game.
For example, this guy.....
JOHN O'NEILL
2016 - Vice President, 2017-2018 - President, Big Ten Football Officials Ass'n
Following a game, the critiques and feedback begin as part of a weeklong process designed to maximize accuracy and minimize Big Ten switchboard overload from irate fans — and coaches.
The process unfurls accordingly:
As officials leave the stadium for home, they receive an immediate game tape to review on the flight home.
Sunday-Monday: Carollo and his staff, which includes NFL consultants, break down each game, dissecting proper and improper calls, nuances, etc. Carollo has a Sunday night conference call with his Big Ten, MAC, Pioneer and Missouri Valley contacts who advise him of what he can expect to hear in terms of grievances or hot topics from coaches and athletic directors.
Monday-Tuesday: There is a conference call with each crew when the previous Saturday’s game is reviewed in detail. Also, officials are hit with a pop quiz early each week, designed to keep them sharp and prepared for an on-the-field situational ambush.
Monday-Wednesday: Officials get from Carollo’s independent evaluators a recap on their grades. Carollo might tell them in the process, “We need to tighten up on targeting” or some such directive spawned by Saturday’s events. {"We need to make phantom holding and targeting calls against Penn State especially when they are in the red zone}
Each position — head referee, back judge, etc. — gets consistent, weekly video critiques of all plays — “training tapes,” Carollo calls them — with voice-overs, as a review and as hard instruction.
“I would say three-quarters of my training tapes have to do with targeting, unnecessary roughness — player safety,” he said. “We might put together a tape of things that didn’t go right that goes to everyone on all crews.
Further, an entire crew can appear incompetently corrupt when conference officiating supervisors instruct the Referees (crew chiefs) what calls they want to emphasize against certain teams. The Ref/Crew Chiefs then share this guidance with their crews, pre-game.
For example, this guy.....
JOHN O'NEILL
Football Referee / Crew Chief
Big Ten Conference
2002 - Present19 years2016 - Vice President, 2017-2018 - President, Big Ten Football Officials Ass'n
Big Ten officials: Gridiron's not-so secret service
Selection, policing process for officials is exhaustive.
www.detroitnews.com
Following a game, the critiques and feedback begin as part of a weeklong process designed to maximize accuracy and minimize Big Ten switchboard overload from irate fans — and coaches.
The process unfurls accordingly:
As officials leave the stadium for home, they receive an immediate game tape to review on the flight home.
Sunday-Monday: Carollo and his staff, which includes NFL consultants, break down each game, dissecting proper and improper calls, nuances, etc. Carollo has a Sunday night conference call with his Big Ten, MAC, Pioneer and Missouri Valley contacts who advise him of what he can expect to hear in terms of grievances or hot topics from coaches and athletic directors.
Monday-Tuesday: There is a conference call with each crew when the previous Saturday’s game is reviewed in detail. Also, officials are hit with a pop quiz early each week, designed to keep them sharp and prepared for an on-the-field situational ambush.
Monday-Wednesday: Officials get from Carollo’s independent evaluators a recap on their grades. Carollo might tell them in the process, “We need to tighten up on targeting” or some such directive spawned by Saturday’s events. {"We need to make phantom holding and targeting calls against Penn State especially when they are in the red zone}
Each position — head referee, back judge, etc. — gets consistent, weekly video critiques of all plays — “training tapes,” Carollo calls them — with voice-overs, as a review and as hard instruction.
“I would say three-quarters of my training tapes have to do with targeting, unnecessary roughness — player safety,” he said. “We might put together a tape of things that didn’t go right that goes to everyone on all crews.
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Why are some calls reviewable and some not? Give a team three TOs and toast one of a challenge fails. End of story.
If we’re talking in general, I’d go incompetent. Assuming this is referring specifically to Saturday night, I have to go corrupt. That was inexcusable.
When I saw "ref poll" I thought we were going to be voting on sexy photos. Thanks for not doing that.
Gee, maybe we should try "Biased" or "Incompetent", which is what many have claimed. Huge difference given that "bias" does not require a conspiracy, or even intention for that matter. If you think "bias" cannot hugely impact something like officiating, then you just don't understand scientific terms such as something creating "biased results".... or "biasing" the results (in other words creating a "Skewed Distribution" rather than a "Normal Disrltribution".). All of the horrendously bad calls in the game, of which there were many, were ALL "skewed" in favor of Auburn and against PSU - the probability of all provably WRONG Calls, of which there were like 8 in this game, going in favor of the Official's home conference team and against the OOC team is a limit approaching zero.
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I saw to many horrible spots from the official on the Penn State sideline for it to be incompetence.
We are lucky to be playing.
I assume the poll was about refs in general or in reference to the SEC blind mice. Incompetent.
B10 refs. There are some that are absolutely corrupt. They were embarrassed by Joe who basically said here are tapes, not just a few bad calls. That resulted in the league office being 'innovative' and using instant replay, first as a test case and then for every game. You don't think that chapped their referee asses?
I assume the poll was about refs in general or in reference to the SEC blind mice. Incompetent.
B10 refs. There are some that are absolutely corrupt. They were embarrassed by Joe who basically said here are tapes, not just a few bad calls. That resulted in the league office being 'innovative' and using instant replay, first as a test case and then for every game. You don't think that chapped their referee asses?
I thought of this interview when I read about the conference talking about "what to tighten up on." Listen to this interview with Donaghy. It's long but concentrate around the 19:20 mark onward. If you don't think this happens in all sports, including big CFB conferences, I think you're kidding yourself. If you have the time the whole thing is interesting. Forget about whatever you may think of Donaghy and just listen to what he's saying.The poll choices are too broad to be meaningful. There are many incompetent officials and some corrupt ones.
Further, an entire crew can appear incompetently corrupt when conference officiating supervisors instruct the Referees (crew chiefs) what calls they want to emphasize against certain teams. The Ref/Crew Chiefs then share this guidance with their crews, pre-game.
For example, this guy.....
JOHN O'NEILL
Football Referee / Crew Chief
Big Ten Conference
2002 - Present19 years
2016 - Vice President, 2017-2018 - President, Big Ten Football Officials Ass'n
Big Ten officials: Gridiron's not-so secret service
Selection, policing process for officials is exhaustive.www.detroitnews.com
Following a game, the critiques and feedback begin as part of a weeklong process designed to maximize accuracy and minimize Big Ten switchboard overload from irate fans — and coaches.
The process unfurls accordingly:
As officials leave the stadium for home, they receive an immediate game tape to review on the flight home.
Sunday-Monday: Carollo and his staff, which includes NFL consultants, break down each game, dissecting proper and improper calls, nuances, etc. Carollo has a Sunday night conference call with his Big Ten, MAC, Pioneer and Missouri Valley contacts who advise him of what he can expect to hear in terms of grievances or hot topics from coaches and athletic directors.
Monday-Tuesday: There is a conference call with each crew when the previous Saturday’s game is reviewed in detail. Also, officials are hit with a pop quiz early each week, designed to keep them sharp and prepared for an on-the-field situational ambush.
Monday-Wednesday: Officials get from Carollo’s independent evaluators a recap on their grades. Carollo might tell them in the process, “We need to tighten up on targeting” or some such directive spawned by Saturday’s events. {"We need to make phantom holding and targeting calls against Penn State especially when they are in the red zone}
Each position — head referee, back judge, etc. — gets consistent, weekly video critiques of all plays — “training tapes,” Carollo calls them — with voice-overs, as a review and as hard instruction.
“I would say three-quarters of my training tapes have to do with targeting, unnecessary roughness — player safety,” he said. “We might put together a tape of things that didn’t go right that goes to everyone on all crews.
Listen to what he says about how the refs felt about Mark Cuban, and why. Not a big stretch when you look at the stink Paterno raised and the long lingering red-ass they must have felt, and still to this day in this conference. Haha, it's not a big mystery fellas. Think about it.
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Corrupt implies they are being paid off. It is also possible that some of the refs are biased (whether consciously or subconsciously) and some are not.
Can't answer that question as it lumps all refs together. Saturday I'd say they were incompetent. Oftentimes, I am quite confident that Big 10 refs have been corrupt whether it's intentional bias or sub-consciously biased. Especially with what we have seen with regards to OSU and MI and not just when they play PSU. I've seen this against other opponents in the past also.
It becomes obvious when they stop calling holding and defensive pass interference. That's how they take over a game. That and the occasional penalty or spot along the way does wonders to help create a great comeback. Just check MI's record in bowl games. In the past they have frequently been slotted into bowl games they don't deserve because of the help they have gotten all season. Matched up against a better opponent and not having the refs on their side and you get losses. Lots of them.
It becomes obvious when they stop calling holding and defensive pass interference. That's how they take over a game. That and the occasional penalty or spot along the way does wonders to help create a great comeback. Just check MI's record in bowl games. In the past they have frequently been slotted into bowl games they don't deserve because of the help they have gotten all season. Matched up against a better opponent and not having the refs on their side and you get losses. Lots of them.
Some of your bowl example may just be in terms of how different conferences call penalties. I think the perception is (or at least used to be) that you can get away with more holding in the Big Ten than other conferences, so when you get to bowl games you will get hammered with holding penalties. I have no idea if anyone has ever done a meta analysis of those penalty data but it would be interesting.
However, there are certainly variabilities between crews within a conference (and perhaps even within crews per individual or by date) in terms of how things are called. Both MSU and Pitt (and to a lesser extent Michigan) have run into problems with getting called for DPI in certain games because some officials would actually call the penalties they were committing on every pass route.
People often focus too much on glaring mistakes - and those happen as we saw. Whether those stem from incompetence or corruption, it’s hard to tell. You’d assume, however, that if you were corrupt, you’d want to be sly about it. And that’s where your “take over the game” statement nails it.
Take 2 fairly evenly-matched Power 5 teams that recruit from the same talent pool. Now make a few calls or, as you noted don’t make a few calls, shave or move forward spots, etc and you’ve shifted the scales towards one team. A neutral observer could not watch Witvoet’s crew in their pomp and come away with a conclusion other than that they were manifestly incompetent or corrupt.
I lean towards incompetent. Regardless, our players and coaches kept their cool, kept their focus and overcame the bad calls to win the game. They also overcame all the Franklin to USC distractions put out there by anti PSU incompetent media individuals. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
The unfortunate effect of instant replay is it created an environment where these corrupt officials could continue their ways after they were too old and fat to impact the games on the field by being acting as replay officials.
The only way to address this is eliminate conference alignment of officials.
When we say corrupt, we don't necessarily mean the whole crew. Maybe, 1 or 2 were biased which is most likely.
I was sitting at 30 yard line, Auburn side, about 30 rows up. On a certain offensive play right on the 30, the AU wide out closest to me was clearly 2 feet beyond the line of scrimmage... crystal clear. Right next to him was line judge. Everyone in our section was yelling at this obvious violation... but nothing called. It was at that point I was convinced this crew was corrupt.
If you can vote for corrupt AND incompetent then I'd vote that way. Being corrupt means you do everything you can without overtly showing your hand. They were out of overt bad calls by the time the Dotson PI was called.
If you can vote for corrupt AND incompetent then I'd vote that way. Being corrupt means you do everything you can without overtly showing your hand. They were out of overt bad calls by the time the Dotson PI was called.
watch that one Iowa Outback bowl, I really can't see anyone ever being that incompetent so many times in one game
there's no game even close to that one as far as bad calls
there's no game even close to that one as far as bad calls
I voted corrupt because I consider bias to fall into that classification.
I'm trying to find the play you're talking about but can't (I looked quick at all of their offensive plays between the 25 and 35 and don't see anything where they're lined up in front of the line)...do you remember if it occurred early/middle/late? The North 30 or the South 30? And any idea if Auburn was in their own terriroty or ours? I'll post a screen shot if I can find it. Thanks.
edit - actually, might have found it. They run a play from their own 28 with 6:30 left in the game that's close (they are coming out of the South Endzone, so were your seats in about WC/WD?). He's not 2 feet off, but does look like the receiver on the Auburn side of the field is ahead of the ball.
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Bingo. I was WD row 20 about 7 seats in from stairs towards end zone (odd number). It was in the 4th quarter for sure, shortly after the refs totally missed LG/LT moving early
Right, I think the issue is bias.
There is a difference between corruption and bias. The first is premeditated behavior springing from dishonest motives. The second is ingrained prejudice influencing snap judgments.
As for incompetence, there's a lot of that going around...in every profession. In fact, there's an old saying: never blame on conspiracies what can be explained by simple incompetence.
An example of gross incompetence would be not understanding the intentional grounding rule. Or losing track of downs. At the major college level, however, such things are simply not seen
Oh wait...
That is a great find... that is exactly the play. What you can't see is the line judge looking right down that line clear as day 20 feet from the wideout
Great pic. How the clock at 0 before the snap and a couple of OL jumping back before the snap.
I go with bias rather than corrupt but it is more than incompetent. If it were just incompetent the bad calls would be more even
. So the PI on Dotson if I am a tiger fan could be one questionable call.
. the 4th down at the endzone looked pretty clear to me. Uncatchable ball and if anything it was offensive interference, but a clearly corrupt official could make a different call
on the other side
. forget a down. That is so bad it goes beyond corrupt or incompetent. So unbelievable no corrupt official would try that but also hard to imagine an ENTIRE group including the replay booth could miss it.
. intentional grounding. Hard to imagine after blowing the call on Cliff they didn't see the Nix grounding as a clear payback.
. fake punt. Sounds like very quick whistle and according to CJF the DL lined up illegally
. Smith roughing. [was that payback for a shaky targeting call?]
. Numerous 5 yard calls missed I think at least 4 times - Auburn OL pulled up early, the clock at zero and the great pick above of lining up offside.
. So the PI on Dotson if I am a tiger fan could be one questionable call.
. the 4th down at the endzone looked pretty clear to me. Uncatchable ball and if anything it was offensive interference, but a clearly corrupt official could make a different call
on the other side
. forget a down. That is so bad it goes beyond corrupt or incompetent. So unbelievable no corrupt official would try that but also hard to imagine an ENTIRE group including the replay booth could miss it.
. intentional grounding. Hard to imagine after blowing the call on Cliff they didn't see the Nix grounding as a clear payback.
. fake punt. Sounds like very quick whistle and according to CJF the DL lined up illegally
. Smith roughing. [was that payback for a shaky targeting call?]
. Numerous 5 yard calls missed I think at least 4 times - Auburn OL pulled up early, the clock at zero and the great pick above of lining up offside.
Franklin is wrong on the defensive formation on the fake punt…they are legal.
On the play that I posted the picture of, I’m not surprised it wasn’t called. He’s definitely offsides, but probably by about 6 inches. Offensive offsides is hardly ever called and you see stuff like that every game. Usually, the official will tell the player to back up when he can, but the Auburn player never looked towards the sidelines to ask.
But some of the other stuff is really bad (or in the case of the missing down, inexcusable).
They line up offside on 2 consecutive plays. Here's a link to the screenshots I posted on Monday. The 2nd one was more egregious and easily noticeable and in the screenshot I grabbed you can see the ref's feet straddling the LOS on the sideline. Another poster later in this said said this was probably close enough to not get called, particularly if the WR looked over at the sideline official pre-snap and wasn't motioned to scoot back. I'm more of a letter of the law type, it looks like offside to me and I wouldn't expect officials to ever tell a player to move so they can avoid a penalty.
Obli's Observations: crib notes
There aren't a ton of observations because so much has already been written and said. I, in fact, didn't see the game live. I was at a fashion show where my daughter participated. Me, a fashion show. Jeezuz. I believe I was the only straight guy there. Certainly the only older, white...
bwi.forums.rivals.com
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Some say bias, some say incompetence.
I will go to my grave swearing that Witvoet took cash at least once in his life related to a game he reffed. That guy was a cheat
I will go to my grave swearing that Witvoet took cash at least once in his life related to a game he reffed. That guy was a cheat
You know what? I notice these things every week. Balls get snapped after the clocks hit zero. Tackles are constantly getting a jump on the snap and you don’t see it called. Drives me crazy but they seem to be things officials allow a certain amount of grace for as a norm.
Those were not just shitty calls. The grounding call was a ridiculously shitty call. Hit out of bounds was a shitty but understandable call. The non-grounding was another shitty but understandable call. Missing a down was inexplicable. The punt fake call was pretty inexplicable as the whistle wasn’t blown until Mustipher was well past the first down.
What I’ve learned about the SEC from living in SEC country for the last 24 years is that their officials are as likely to favor the golden SEC programs in games against lesser SEC programs as the Big10 is. But the SEC mentality is very different in their belief in and support for the conference as a whole. I find it really odd. Auburn/Alabama? I would expect to watch that and see the calls favor Alabama. Any other SEC school against any team from any other conference with SEC officials? I would expect the calls to favor the SEC team.
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The Referines used to be corrupt right here in the Big Ten, now mostly incompetent but that Auburn game does make one wonder.
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