Officials Officially Tired of Todd Reesing?

It's just like a football fan to jump the officials for every half-questionable call they make, isn't it?

The officiating crew in charge of last Saturday's contest between Southern Miss and Kansas probably thinks so. Kansas played a sloppy game, and the 50,000 strong in Memorial Stadium got all over the guys in stripes just for doing their jobs.

This isn't to say the officials were perfect, but I thought that the Jayhawk fans were getting a little unreasonable in the heat of a close game over some calls that seemed at least semi-reasonable to me.

All of them except for one.

That one call came in the second half after a Todd Reesing scramble when, after picking himself up off the ground, he appeared to inadvertently drop the ball on the face-mask of his Southern Miss tackler.

Maybe Todd Reesing is a really good actor. Maybe the officials saw something I didn't see.

What I saw, however, was a quarterback hop up after being tackled and, without a directed glance or hesitation of any abnormal kind, tossed the ball from where he stood, just like always, before jogging back to the huddle all in one fluid (but not rushed) series of movements.

Sure, the entire incident could've been avoided had Reesing simply left the ball on the turf. Instead, the ball landed on the defender's face and Reesing was slapped with a big penalty.

Reesing did either drop or toss the ball on a defender's face, which is certainly punishable by penalty, whether Reesing appeared guilty or not; it was a judgement call.

My only question is that if Austin Davis had tossed the ball on Chris Harris' face in the exact same situation, would a flag have been thrown?

I don't believe there is any particular bias or bigotry in the world against Todd Reesing, but you have to wonder whether or not officials enjoy Reesing's game antics.

Todd Reesing is a national spotlight kind of guy, he touches the ball on each play of every KU possession, and as a quarterback he draws plenty of attention from the rulebook as it is.

Combining all of that with the fact that our feisty little quarterback is also a fierce competitor and no stranger to animated chats with officials, one could be inclined to think that maybe the officials had subconsciously targeted Reesing.

To be honest, it's not necessarily to the fault of the officiating crew or Todd Reesing. Reesing is just a popular, exciting guy to watch who naturally attracts a lot of eyes.

The Southern Miss game was certainly a heated one played in front of a hostile crowd, and officials are human, believe it or not. With emotions running high and penalties flying freely, could the zebra-stripes have let human nature get the best of them?

As I said earlier, the call made against Reesing was not an unwarranted one, but I can say with almost complete confidence that the majority of average, unbiased witnesses, not even KU fans, would have kept the bright yellow in their pockets.

But then again, maybe I'm wrong.

Our spunky, highly-respected, very active, 5'10", 200-pound quarterback probably attracts absolutely no more attention than the average, stationary, crowded up lineman does once the ball is snapped.

I am a KU fan, so it's hard to keep bias out of this one. I have yelled and screamed with the best of them, and this could easily be just one more call I wasn't mature enough to handle, but who really knows.

At least, ultimately, it didn't matter much.