The Same Officiating Problems Keep Coming Up for the NCAA

The NCAA is in trouble and it all starts with the men with the most power. No, I'm not talking about the football coaches, I'm talking about the officials.

It has been horrendous for years. Maybe one sign was that bogus pass interference call that spurred Ohio State to the National Championship back in 2003. Since then, the officiating has gone downhill from there.

The capping of this horrible officating in the NCAA happened on Sept. 6, 2008 with the BYU vs. Washington game, and the flag for unsportsmanlike conduct became a national debate on if it should be thrown or not.

The answer was clearly their should have been no flag on the play. I do understand why this rule was put into place to take away the taunting in the game and the excessive celebrations. Neither were done on the play involved in the BYU vs. Washington game.

Everyone knows that the officials have a tough job trying to make these calls, but these calls that have been made are not the tough ones. They have been rather easy calls to make and have been missed by replay officials as well as the officials on the field.

Everyone knows about the Oklahoma vs. Oregon call and the onside kick that was recovered by Oklahoma. It was touched by an Oregon player before it went the necessary yardage, and even after all that the ball went to Oregon and the Ducks eventually won the game as a result.

The play was reviewed and the replay officials got penalize for blowing the call, but it doesn't help the fact that Oklahoma should have won the game.

The infamous fair catch by a University of Connecticut who had his hand up to signal like he was going to call for a fair catch but didn't wave his hand twice.

Louisville assumed that it was a fair catch; it was caught for what should have been called an illegal fair catch which means the play is dead. The UCONN player ran the ball back for a TD, which proved to be the game winner.

Now you just thought it couldn't get any worse until today's game. Sure Cal does deserve to lose this game because they never came out for it and have looked pathetic. But a huge momentum changer was totally missed. What makes it worse this lack of a call took a lot of momentum away from Cal.

Cal could have gone to the locker room down at least only 13 instead of 15 and would have gotten the ball back with less than two minutes left.

What happened?

After a great punt by Cal backed Maryland up to their 1-yard line, they ran the ball to Da'Rel Scott who received the ball in the end zone and never got out,which should have been ruled a safety. Instead, the official stated he had crossed the goal line. Never did Da'Rel Scott get enough momentum to get near the goal line.