NCAA football, 2013-14

[alfred russel]

... and beat the Michigan team that got Lloyd Carr fired...

When you say this kind of obviously false crap, you kinda ruin the effect of trying to sound like you know what you are talking about.  Carr retired under his own terms (it's hard to remember, considering his later actions, that he was the guy who picked rich Rodriguez to replace him) and remained a member of the athletic department staff for another four years.  The year he "was fired" according you you he was awarded the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award.  Admittedly, that was a retirement gift and certainly not awarded for his accomplishments that year (his team got curbstomped by Oregon and Wisconsin that year), but they don't award that to guys who just got fired.

What is this? You pick two losses to highlight from Carr's last season and you pick Oregon and Wisconsin? Why not mention Ohio State, and oh yeah, APPALACHIAN STATE.

Whether he really left on his own terms is debatable. He was under intense pressure from alumni and fans and considering what they were supposed to do, his last year can best be described as an abortion. His record against Ohio State was pathetic once Tressel got there. He wasn't so old. I think he was pushed out, and I'm hardly alone in thinking that.

[alfred russel]

I am not really surprised at the 10 yard call being missed.

In realtime, this happens incredibly fast, and judging where exactly the ball is when it is in flight is incredibly hard. There are a LOT of things happening in your field of view, all within a split second.

This is MUCH harder than judging, for example, if the ball crossed the goal line in possession.

How they miss it in replay I am not sure...

I'm not sure either, but boy there seems to be a trend of calls going the Pac 10/12s way when there are interconference games officiated by Pac 10 officials.

[Berkut]

I am not really surprised at the 10 yard call being missed.

In realtime, this happens incredibly fast, and judging where exactly the ball is when it is in flight is incredibly hard. There are a LOT of things happening in your field of view, all within a split second.

This is MUCH harder than judging, for example, if the ball crossed the goal line in possession.

How they miss it in replay I am not sure...

I'm not sure either, but boy there seems to be a trend of calls going the Pac 10/12s way when there are interconference games officiated by Pac 10 officials.

Meh, that is just plain ignorant. Not unexpected, but ignorant. And I mean that in a strictly non-emotive sense, you really have no clue how officiating assignments work, how they are evaluated, and how they are rewarded.

There is no upside for a conference official from any conference playing favorites, and an incredible amount of downside.

[alfred russel]

Meh, that is just plain ignorant. Not unexpected, but ignorant. And I mean that in a strictly non-emotive sense, you really have no clue how officiating assignments work, how they are evaluated, and how they are rewarded.

There is no upside for a conference official from any conference playing favorites, and an incredible amount of downside.

The Pac whatever is effectively a multi million dollar business, as is the Big 12. A contest that will have material financial impacts is waged between the two businesses, and needs to be officiated. The officiating involves hundreds of highly subjective incidents occurring in very short time periods. You are telling me that all the officials being employed by one of the parties, and evaluated by the same party, doesn't in any way bias the officiating?

Since I assume you say "no", can we apply this to other avenues of business? It would be great society could save on court costs, and highly subjective disputes between say Apple and Microsoft could be resolved by employees of one of the parties (determined by coin toss) carefully weighing the evidence and making a decision.

[sbr]

Pac-xx officials have been terrible for a long time.  Incompetence is a much easier explanation than corruption.

[Berkut]

Meh, that is just plain ignorant. Not unexpected, but ignorant. And I mean that in a strictly non-emotive sense, you really have no clue how officiating assignments work, how they are evaluated, and how they are rewarded.

There is no upside for a conference official from any conference playing favorites, and an incredible amount of downside.

The Pac whatever is effectively a multi million dollar business, as is the Big 12. A contest that will have material financial impacts is waged between the two businesses, and needs to be officiated. The officiating involves hundreds of highly subjective incidents occurring in very short time periods. You are telling me that all the officials being employed by one of the parties, and evaluated by the same party, doesn't in any way bias the officiating?

Since I assume you say "no", can we apply this to other avenues of business?

Officiating sporting events is almost nothing like any other avenue of business. You are comparing apples and oranges. Actually, you are comparing apples and bicycles.

You can tell this is rue simply because if it were NOT true, then nobody would ever agree to allow conference officials to officiate non-conference games. Your own analogy proves you are wrong, and I don't even have to actually explain how NCAA football officials are hired, compensated, and rewarded.

[alfred russel]

Pac-xx officials have been terrible for a long time.  Incompetence is a much easier explanation than corruption.

I'm not saying corruption in the "we are going to fix the game" type of corruption. I'm just saying there is an inherent bias in all interconference games without neutral refs (basically the bowl games).

Imo, the ACC refs in interconference games have been just as bad if not worse. The gators won't allow ACC refs into the swamp after they were outright robbed by them about 10 years ago.

[CountDeMoney]

Pac-xx officials have been terrible for a long time.  Incompetence is a much easier explanation than corruption.

It's been a well-known fact in the counter-intelligence community that the North Koreans have approached various PAC-12 referees over the last several years, as gambling on Colorado games has proven to be nearly as lucrative as printing counterfeit currency, and more of a sure thing.

[Berkut]

Pac-xx officials have been terrible for a long time.  Incompetence is a much easier explanation than corruption.

I'm not saying corruption in the "we are going to fix the game" type of corruption. I'm just saying there is an inherent bias in all interconference games without neutral refs (basically the bowl games).

But how would this supposed bias express itself?

If it isn't overt in the manner of "I saw X, I am going to say I saw Y because that is better for my conference" then what are you talking about?

I've been on the field, I've had coaches and fans accuse me of bias, and the thing is, what is funny is how completely ludicrous it is from a practical standpoint. I could not even imagine HOW I would go about being biased without it being blindingly obvious.

If there is bias that matters, it has to be expressed in some fashion, there has to be some mechanism for it to express itself. What is that mechanism?

Do you think any of the officials in this game were watching that play and saw the ball get touched early, and just decide "Fuck it, I am going to pretend I didn't see that..."?

[grumbler]

What is this? You pick two losses to highlight from Carr's last season and you pick Oregon and Wisconsin? Why not mention Ohio State, and oh yeah, APPALACHIAN STATE.

I mentioned the teams that curbstomped Michigan because Michigan wasn't competitive in those games.  Michigan had every chance against ASU and OSU.  It just lost. That happens, especially when that defense played against spread offenses like ASU's.  Oregon was more than just the spread, it was great playcalling and execution.  Wisky just blew them off the ball.

Whether he really left on his own terms is debatable. He was under intense pressure from alumni and fans and considering what they were supposed to do, his last year can best be described as an abortion. His record against Ohio State was pathetic once Tressel got there. He wasn't so old. I think he was pushed out, and I'm hardly alone in thinking that.

Anything is debatable, so long as you ignore the evidence.  You'd hardly be alone in thinking the Moon landings were a hoax, either.  But, absent any actual evidence for either the "Carr was fired" or the "Moon landings were faked" theories, you'd just be another nut case. 

[Berkut]

The refrain that the Pac-10/12 has terrible officials is pretty much accepted amongst Pac-12 fans as a matter of course.

I wonder how you could actually have some kind of objective measure of conference officiating quality?

The only thing I could think of is post-season assignments, which are done by the NCAA - see how many go to conference officials from each of the BCS conferences. Although even that would be hard to evaluate, since most officials will work more than one conference.

[CountDeMoney]

But, absent any actual evidence for either the "Carr was fired" or the "Moon landings were faked" theories, you'd just be another nut case.

Lloyd Carr built bridges among stakeholders across all silos, particularly during halftime interviews.

[grumbler]

Pac-xx officials have been terrible for a long time.  Incompetence is a much easier explanation than corruption.

The real problem, as I see it, is that the Pac XX teams won't play unless with Pac XX officials.  When UCLA comes to play Michigan, Michigan has to hire Pac XX officials and pay to bring them to Ann Arbor.  I don't think that that applies to bowl games any more, but all the Rose Bowls for a long time were officiated by Pac 10 officials, reporting to the Pac 10 Head of officials, who worked for the conference commissioner.  You gotta wonder if that played on their minds.

[Admiral Yi]

I wonder how you could actually have some kind of objective measure of conference officiating quality?

You could count calls for and against in interconference games and compare that to calls for and against, for each team (to control for teams that get a lot of flags regardless) in intraconference games or in bowls with third-party refs.

[alfred russel]

But how would this supposed bias express itself?

If it isn't overt in the manner of "I saw X, I am going to say I saw Y because that is better for my conference" then what are you talking about?

I've been on the field, I've had coaches and fans accuse me of bias, and the thing is, what is funny is how completely ludicrous it is from a practical standpoint. I could not even imagine HOW I would go about being biased without it being blindingly obvious.

If there is bias that matters, it has to be expressed in some fashion, there has to be some mechanism for it to express itself. What is that mechanism?

Do you think any of the officials in this game were watching that play and saw the ball get touched early, and just decide "Fuck it, I am going to pretend I didn't see that..."?

"Was that a hold, or was that not a hold, it is close. What to do?"

I heard on the Mark Richt radio show allude to it not being right an official was assigned to his game after making a controversial call against UGA in an earlier game. It can't be good for an official's future to have conference schools on the warpath against you. If there is a close call, and you are an SEC official, and the game is UGA - Clemson, do you think that would cause some officials to lean in one direction?

I've read studies that the entire home field in football may be due to referee bias in favor of home teams. Here is an article of one study on referee bias (there many others, this is just one from google):

http://deadspin.com/5407674/study-college-basketball-refs-suck-too