For fans, it's always fun to pick on the official; to yell at him after you think he's made a bad call. Rarely are the fans correct in yelling at an official for making a bad call.
But after yet another incredibly dumb call by a Pac-10 officiating crew yesterday, the whole world has the right to scream at these officials.
With eight seconds to play and Washington trailing 28-21 against No. 15 BYU and looking for a big upset, Jake Locker took the snap and ran for the end zone. He made it, and with two seconds remaining in regulation, Washington had a chance to pull off an upset on a team most experts had picked to be the BCS buster this year.
What happened next will be debated for what could be the rest of the year.
Locker threw the ball over his shoulder and celebrated with his team. Typical celebration, nothing incredibly out of the ordinary here. The Huskies were ecstatic over having the chance to beat a very good team, and looked to tie the game and send it into overtime.
But wait, the Pac-10 officials realize that they have to decide the outcome of the game. So, a flag is thrown for excessive celebration, and Washington is backed up 15 yards. I'll let you watch the video for yourself and decide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap6Kn0dkbyY
To me, this is one of the worst calls in football in a long time. Why do you call an excessive celebration penalty on a kid that is just excited about his team having a chance at winning? Unbelievable.
But it happened.
The Huskies would have had an easy 20-yard extra point if this stupid miscue didn't happen. Instead, Pac-10 officials stepped in and made it basically a 35-yard field goal, which is not very easy. The kick was blocked, and I'm willing to bet it was partially because the 15 yards put a lot more pressure on the kicker to make the PAT.
The main point here is an officiating crew should not decide the game.
But they did, and it's not the first time that it's happened. Or the second. Or even the third.
Everyone already knows about the officiating screw-up in the 2006 Oklahoma vs. Oregon game. That was one of the worst mistakes since the infamous Fifth Down in 1991.
One mistake is understandable, but several over the course over the last couple of years is pretty bad.
Honestly, I'd rather have Sun Belt officials calling the game. These officials should be either fired or suspended for a while.
Officials should not determine the outcome of the game, and it's happened several times in the past couple of years because of these idiots.
7 comments Last one added 9 months ago — Leave a Comment
Landon Hulet 9 months ago
Why the heck shouldn't they decide the game? If they aren't supposed to decide the game, why do we even have refs? Second, they didn't decide the game. How often is a 35 yard punt blocked are a 35 yard PAT? So, they obviously would have called this if it was in the first quarter, but according to you they shouldn't call anything if the game is close late game. You really are stupid. THIS IS A RULE. YOU CANNOT TOSS THE BALL INTO THE AIR!!!
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College Football Fanatic 9 months ago
Look, if I'm the official there, and he throws the ball into the air, I'm not going to call excessive celebration.
Plus, you took my "the refs shouldn't decide the game" comment completely out of context. What I meant there was that they shouldn't totally screw the entire game up with two seconds left on the clock.
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Michael Ogden 9 months ago
The ref called a penalty that was occurred according to the rule book. You can't dispute that. The call was a good one in the sense that Jake Locker broke the rule as written. The oddity I see is that why wait until the last few plays of the game to decide to apply to the rules to the game? The Officials didn't think it was necessary to call holding calls or blocks in the back but suddenly they decided to call the unsportsmanlike penalty. Very odd. The official made a correct call. Jake, who said he knew the rule, still threw the ball in the air. It as a moment of excitement but that doesn't excuse him. College football is part of a learning institution. The players are supposed to be learning and growing from their time on the field. We make a lot of excuses for athletes in the classroom, on the field and in their public dealings. What does this teach them? I know college football has become more of a money making program than an educational program but the idea is still to produce quality athletes. The rules are in place to help the players to develop attributes and skills that will make them a benefit to society. In the work place we follow rules. We follow rules of the road. We follow rules in our social lives. We all notice when someone else breaks the rules and usually take issue (unless we also like to break that rule then we cheer the rule breaker).
I know this discussion is deeper than football probably is but this incident showed the amazing character of Jake Locker. This guy will be a success in the future. Not only in sports but in anything he does. The integrity to be able to take ownership of his actions is amazing even though it had to bother him that such a silly rule existed. I would guess that there are very few athletes of Jake's caliber. It was unfortunate that it had to be called. I wish Jake would not have tossed the ball in the air. The official wouldn't have had to make the call. The safest way to make sure that your life isn't ruined by someone else is to keep control of your actions so that no one else has a chance to decide your fate. I know Jake Locker learned an important lesson from that game on Saturday. He will never make a silly rule infraction again...ever.
I really would have liked the UW team to respond by pushing BYU off the ball and allowing the kicker the opportunity to make that kick. The team didn't respond well to the call. That isn't the officials fault. The officials shouldn't be taking the psyche of the team into consideration when they need to throw a flag. A team with confidence and a belief in their coaching staff and each other will overcome that type of penalty and rise to the occasion and make the play. That is what great teams do. An official is there to call out rule infractions and to let the teams battle out who will win. That happened on Saturday. Maybe the rules committee will now take notice that the rule they have promulgated needs to be updated to preclude a call such as this from happening again. Then again maybe they got the outcome they anticipated. A teaching moment.
Anger and animosity against the officiating crew are misplaced. They did their job on that play. On the next play the BYU players did their job better than the UW players did theirs.
I hope you were able to follow that train of thought.
I am disappointed for Jake Locker but excited to know such a high quality individual exists and will only get better in the future.
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Michael Ogden 9 months ago
Correction:
The ref called a penalty that occurred according to the rule book.
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Larry Sigurdson 9 months ago
Hi Fanatic,
Understand your frustration. But, I believe your anger would be better directed at the University Presidents and Athletic Directors who changed the NCAA Div. IA, End Zone Celebration rules for the 2008 Season.
In my humble opinion, it's a dumb rule and I fail to understand what it is that they are attempting to accomplish with it.
Several years ago the NCAA was upset with individual players celebrating after touch downs in the end zones, so they said that celebration had to done as a team. Now they've totally banned celebration altogether-whether as an individual or as a team. I guess the young men on on football teams are now supposed to be robots totally devoid of any emotion.
Go figure.
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College Football Fanatic 9 months ago
I agree with you, Larry. But it was a Pac-10 officiating crew that screwed it up, and this is just another bad call in a string a terrible calls by the Pac-10 officials.
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gael macpherson 9 months ago
it's a fact!! pac 10 football referees really are the dumbest officials in all of sports. not dishonest, just incredibly dumb. they are responsible for debacle upon debacle. i would shudder if my team had to go out west and play a pac 10 team with these striped idiots dancind around the field. what are the required qualifications to be a pac 10 football official? right - moron, idiot, stupid, vapid, void of humanity, and vacant of the possibility to make a correct on field decision. i weep for college football
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