Good edition, Commissioner. I find that it is hard to type when my pulse
is still pounding even down to my fingertips.
If Alabama can just get the offense that played yesterday to show up on
the same Saturday as the defense that played against Virginia Tech, perhaps my
bp will fall back down to somewhere in the triple digits.
I agree with the grades.
I'm hoping for a quick recovery for Belue; we will beat Colorado State
without him, but Mississippi will be much more of a challenge.
Officiating:
Regular readers of this space already know that by the middle of the
second quarter my dogs were hiding under the furniture and my wife was checking
to make sure the neighbors weren't out in the yard staring at the purplish haze
of invective that was probably seeping out the windows and hanging like a cloud
over the roof. So my apologies to the Ledbetter and Bunch families. Ritter's crew has long had a reputation for
being flag happy and conducting endless conferences, to no point, between
plays. Not that Verne and Gary are a
brains trust, but even they were at a loss to provide a fig leaf for some of
the goofy pronouncements from the field yesterday.
I thought perhaps it was just me. It is not.
Fans from friendly rivals like Oklahoma, Ohio State, even mainstream
reporters from places like ESPN and Yahoo are questioning some of what went on
yesterday. A stiff arm does not mean you
are allowed to grab the defensive player's facemask. The fact that a quarterback is scrambling
(and really good at it) does not mean your offensive linemen are excused from
obeying the rules about holding. Even if
a receiver is forced out of bounds, that doesn't mean he doesn't have to get
back in bounds before touching the ball.
Just because a receiver made a really good catch doesn't mean that he
gets to push off the defensive player to do it.
Calls were missed and blown both ways yesterday -- that does not make it
"fair"; that makes it lousy.
Lots of chatter on the internet last night and this
morning about whether the officiating crew was biased for Texas A&M. I, for one, don't buy that. My theory has always been that if the choice
is between conspiracy and incompetence, pick incompetence. Unfortunately, that leaves us with an almost
as distasteful result. I've said it before
and I'll say it again, the best teams, the best coaches, and the best fans in
all of college football deserve the best officiating. No one with even a casual understanding of
the game would say that yesterday's "effort" was anywhere close to
that. It's not that they wanted Texas
A&M to win, just that their incompetence happened to fall more heavily on
us.
Look, no one is opposed to making players safer within
the rules. The new NCAA rule on
"targeting" however, is ill-conceived, arbitrarily applied, and should be repealed
before this Thursday night's kickoffs.
We very nearly lost Clinton-Dix for part of the first half and all of
the second, basically for trying to make an interception. Let me ask you to consider this
question: If Ha-ha had been a half
second faster and he had caught the ball, do you think the zebra would have
thrown a flag on the wide receiver? Me,
either. Questionable application of
this rule probably cost Oklahoma a touchdown yesterday -- even after the
officials in the booth overturned the ejection, the other team was awarded a
first and goal. How long before it costs
someone an important game? Before
Halloween, would be my guess.
The SEC has been on a public relations campaign the last
two seasons to try to gin up some sympathy for its officials. Last year they even resorted to having
sportswriters come on the field during scrimmage games like the A-Day game to
see how hard they worked at their jobs.
This year, former officials have been sent on speaking tours to convince
people that officiating is just really hard to do. I think it speaks volumes that the conference
thinks this is necessary. If your press
is that bad, isn't there just a teensy weensy chance it means you need to work
on some issues?
Steve Shaw is an Alabama graduate, was a great on-field
official, and a good man. He has a
thankless task. But this issue needs
attention pronto. I understand that
officials have film review of every game.
If so, whomever conducts the follow up to this Saturday's game should
peel the paint from the walls in that session.
A more wholesale solution is required.
Perhaps it is time to dump the "crew" system for something
else. I'm willing to find out if
something different really is worse.
The Correspondent From The Tire Store
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