Why College Football Would Benefit from Nationalizing Officiating
The Football Rules Committee is just one arm of the NCAA’s massive bureaucracy, but like other parts of the organization, when it makes news that people care about, it tends to do so in a noticeable way.
Such was the case once again Thursday when the college football world busily looked over the recent set of proposals the committee approved and forwarded to the rest of the membership. The changes, which follow four days' worth of meetings in Orlando, Florida, are mostly centered on player safety but also include a handful of ideas designed to bring the game into the modern age.
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Among the “technology items,” as the NCAA’s release termed them, the committee recommended the use of electronic devices (i.e. tablets and laptops) in the coaches box and voted to allow conferences to experiment—a key distinction—with other officials at the conference office to assist in making replay decisions.
According to CBSSports.com's Jon Solomon, that last proposal came about because SEC coaches demanded a collaborative replay process, and now it appears college football is on its way toward NFL-style centralized replay.
“The idea is the replay official at the stadium will make the decision but in collaboration and with input from offsite people,” national officiating coordinator Rogers Redding said, via Solomon. “It doesn't change who makes the decision. It just changes the capability of further consultation.”
While such news should be viewed as a positive step when it comes to fixing mistakes made by officials in college football games, it’s also a stopgap measure on our way to what really should be happening with officials: They should be nationalized and rolled up under the NCAA banner.
This isn’t a new concept. In fact, this columnist called for just such a measure in early November following Miami’s “win” over Duke in Week 9, when officials botched a number of calls and remarkably failed to overturn any of them upon going to the booth for replay.
Logistical concerns have always been an obstacle in nationalizing any aspect of the officiating process, and that’s likely a good reason why the Football Rules Committee approved this experiment on a conference level in lieu of a bigger push.
The powers that be want to analyze how things will work on Saturdays this fall, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Let’s just hope they understand it will undoubtedly expose them to criticism each week.
That’s why nationalizing—or at least regionalizing—replays and officials is the way to go. Implementing the practice in a single conference could be troublesome.
Just think of all the conference bias and conspiracy theories that are likely to surface the moment a 50-50 replay goes the way of a powerhouse instead of the underdog. Heck, we’re sure the message boards will light up like Christmas trees as soon as some team—say, Alabama—gets a call overturned its way while it's in the middle of a run to keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive.
“The SEC just cares about protecting its golden goose,” a few tweets and Facebook posts are likely to say.
Knowing many of the figures involved, that could not be further from the truth. Officials want to get the calls right, either on the field initially or in the replay booth. Sometimes split-second decisions are tough to make, and the video evidence to overturn something just isn’t there. In addition, all the technology and training in the world sometimes isn’t enough to overcome a small human error in the blink of an eye.
More than anything, I’m not sure why the conferences themselves wouldn’t enjoy the public-relations win that would come from nationalizing officiating.
Just think, if you’re Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, about not hearing how bad Pac-12 referees are each week. Why wouldn’t SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey want to distance himself from the reputation SEC officials have developed?
The same goes for the rest of the leagues around the country.
Instead, they can just direct fan anger toward the NCAA and say, "There's your bad guy, not us."
It may never come to pass, however, and that’s a tragedy. Sure, there are considerable logistical challenges, but they’re not impossible to overcome. An NFL-style replay center (or centers, if you want to go more regional) simply makes too much sense not to be built. It will make the game better and help the officials on the field even more.
Perhaps the Football Rules Committee proposals are a step in the right direction. They certainly are when it comes to player safety and the increasing use of technology for coaches.
It’s not enough, however, and maybe someday someone in the sport will realize it and flip the switch for nationalized officiating in college football.
Bryan Fischer is a national college football columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.
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