TINY OVERWHELMED MONKEYS MAKING DECISIONS QUICKLY AND POORLY

by Orson on Aug 11, 2009 1:13 PM EDT

That, if you'll recall from last year's BYU/Washington game, is what happens when you take apes, give them complex and sometimes poorly written rules, and ask them to navigate them 14 times a year under the live fire of crowd noise, bodies hurtling all over the place, and the confusion of real-life angles and blocked perspectives. Necessarily stated: officiating is hard, especially in football officiating, a job akin to being a traffic cop stuck without a car vainly trying to flag down speeders without the benefit of a radar gun or pistol.

There's really just four sets of eyes out there to watch 22 players in motion, and this bad math leads to worse calls. Realistically, holding really could be called on every play, and every game contains a thousand variables being processed by very fallible brains working very quickly under immense pressure. Faced with an impossible job, most crews seem to stick to the big stuff, calling the most egregious penalties while letting little ones slide.

Unless, unless, unless: the crew is captained by Ron Cherry, the most annoying spotlight-slutty referee in the nation and a kidney stone of an official at best, or the crew actually decides to call the excessive celebration call.

The rule is a bad one, especially when called as insanely as it was against Jake Locker above, but it's unmanageable not just in its content, but in its further clouding of the ol' mental windshield for officials already trying to balance a zillion things at once. People's cognition tends to suffer as more variables are thrown in, something that applies to both quarterbacks and officials. Add enough of them, and soon the rule book is as incomprehensible and unpracticeable as the Dave Clawson offense.

Thus Mack Brown's fear of what may result from the new emphasis on ejecting players for above the neck contact from defenders: he's terrified of the possibilities of officials being given one more thing to think about and interpret, and of watching the Texas program's coaching scion, Will Muschamp, die on the sideline as his head explodes on a particularly ticky-tacky call against Sergio Kindle in a big game.

In the same Kirk Bohls article R.C. Slocum makes an even darker point: not only does an additional fuzzy and ultimately subjective rule make for official confusion, but it opens the door for corrupt officials to influence games even more than they might already:

"I've got nothing against officials," Slocum said, "but we've got politicians who have less than perfect integrity. Bankers, doctors, preachers, lawyers all have problems, but we've got no crooked officials?

"We've got TV ministers and priests, some of them proven not to be (upstanding), and it's unthinkable that a whole group of officials have total integrity? It's an insult to our intelligence."

This will get out hand, gentlemen. And when it does, you'll experience rage untold. Even money on the most egregious being from the blind collection of random hankie machines called the Pac-10 Officiating Corps, since they've been the ones most likely to walk face-first into the logical bear traps of new rules. (Dan Fouts' beard still deserves a group hug for making the "Horrible call!" judgment on the spot, and for doing this with his alma mater getting the upside of a demonstrably monstrous call.)

Tweet Comment 29 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

I had a cogent, well-thought argument typed up, then I realized I only need two words to characterize this new rule: Bull. Shit.

by Harris on Aug 11, 2009 1:36 PM EDT reply actions

Coming from a Bama fan…this has to be the worst call I’ve seen in years! Then again I’m a bit biased.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEFgxehqIcM

by TheDeuce69 on Aug 11, 2009 1:37 PM EDT reply actions

Who could forget this classic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Z-kAmbZCc

by TheDeuce69 on Aug 11, 2009 1:47 PM EDT reply actions

Oh, and I couldn’t find it online, but the Phantom Clip in the 1991 Orange Bowl is still the worst call I’ve ever seen, especially since it negated a game-winning kickoff return.

by Harris on Aug 11, 2009 1:47 PM EDT reply actions

Folks, safety is a good thing.

Unless he gets sucked in by the run and leaves the middle of the field open.

by Sean Glennon's Jersey on Aug 11, 2009 1:56 PM EDT reply actions

nothing will ever top the 2004 “swindle in the swamp” I thought arterial blood was going to shoot out of my eyes.

Jackie Childress can forever go eat a bag of dicks.

by ben hill gryphon on Aug 11, 2009 2:17 PM EDT reply actions

2003 – not ’04 – still so choked with rage I have trouble thinking straight about that game

by ben hill gryphon on Aug 11, 2009 2:23 PM EDT reply actions

Ron Cherry is the ACC’s affirmative action policy at work.

by DrB on Aug 11, 2009 2:28 PM EDT reply actions

Anything that gives Ron Cherry more power is a good thing, right? I was watching an old rerun of MIA-FSU last week (when da U was in the Big East – and Ron Cherry was part of the Big East officiating crew). Yes, I was incredibly bored. Did the Big East force the ACC to take RC as part of the deal when Miami left?

by hobeg8r on Aug 11, 2009 2:33 PM EDT reply actions

Why is there no youtube video of the swindle in the swamp?

by willet on Aug 11, 2009 2:36 PM EDT reply actions

Willet,

Found swindle in the swamp for ya….

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1416/1398406598_303c31e5b2.jpg

by Sean Glennon's Jersey on Aug 11, 2009 2:47 PM EDT reply actions

to the NCAA: PLEASE STOP GIVING THE REFS MORE RULES TO FUCK UP THE GAME WITH.

There has been nothing more noxious to both college and pro football than the necessity of both the NCAA and the NFL to add even more ticky-tack, worthless rules about who can be hit and where over the years — particularly the celebration ones and what falls under the netherworld of “unsportsmanlike conduct.”

by Signal to Noise on Aug 11, 2009 2:55 PM EDT reply actions

“blind collection of random hankie machines” is both precise and accurate. The thing that drives me nuts about watching the Pac-10 is the incredible inconsistency of the officiating, as if all of a sudden somebody says “oh shit I forgot to throw a flag this half” and dings somebody for a pass interference move that wouldn’t get you looked at askance if you pulled it on Cindy Mae Wheedlebucket in the front pew at Vacation Bible School.

And while on the topic of swindles in swamps other than Orson, let’s not even get me wound up re: the “celebration” call on Vandy in said Swamp a few years back…to be honest, I think they should just take the celebration penalty off the books, as it only ever seems to get called when something serious is in the balance. How many celebration calls have you seen where the conversion would tie the game versus when the celebrating team is already up by 28?

by Vandy J on Aug 11, 2009 3:04 PM EDT reply actions

Wasn’t Ron Cherry the guy that ripped off the “givin’ him the business” call? Or did I imagine that…..

by Sean Glennon's Jersey on Aug 11, 2009 3:25 PM EDT reply actions

Seriously, Ron Cherry is awful and anyone who watches the above clip would agree. Therefore, we the people can find solace in a universal dislike of him, thus relieving our rage. Its officials like PENN WAGERS that cause couch fires, cracked plasmas, and the overall desire to punch anything within arms reach…

by EDSBSDawg on Aug 11, 2009 3:54 PM EDT reply actions

#14
He was, and we all now must suffer for it

by Morgan on Aug 11, 2009 4:01 PM EDT reply actions

Here’s one of the worst no-calls perpetrated against Nebraska:

http://www.huskerpedia.com/images/twist2_si.jpg

by Exiled_in_VT on Aug 11, 2009 4:10 PM EDT reply actions

@ Vandy J….That was the call that popped in my head when I was reading the post. If I recall the receiver from Vandy did a fist pump as he crossed the goal line and the idiot ref flagged him for excessive celebration. As far as this new rule goes, this will be a disaster of epic proportions…..I’m looking at you, Pac-10.

by D-Macs LoveChile on Aug 11, 2009 4:30 PM EDT reply actions

Al Ford.

Penn Wagers.

Both worse than Ron Cherry.

by Gen. Stoopnagle on Aug 11, 2009 4:39 PM EDT reply actions

Nike is not only handy for supplying butt-ugly uni’s, it’s also very helpful in providing money to buy off refs.

Oregon sucks.

by Soonertruth on Aug 11, 2009 5:02 PM EDT reply actions

Sean Glennon’s Jersey – I almost puked when he pulled that out. Straight up rip off. All made worse by his smug shit eatin grin while doing it, and the air time he received. And General Stoop, you may be right it does not get any more incompetent than those two, but Mr. Cherry is at once an idiot and an attention seeker of the highest order. He will make his presence known and felt in any game he ref’s. Part of the field, my ass!

by skinnyphatman on Aug 11, 2009 5:41 PM EDT reply actions

I don’t even like Slocum’s idea of letting the conference handle it later. How many times have we seen the conference officials bungle officiating calls after the fact? How about just 15 yards and the knowledge that if you throw a cheap shot against someone, you’re asking for them to cheap shot you back?

The Oklahoma-Oregon call is probably the worst I’ve seen because it was made by the review official who was suspended for the rest of the season and then let go as quietly as possible. Think about that. You have to have made a terrible call, if it was so bad that the Pac-10 fired you over it.

by BigFatScott on Aug 11, 2009 6:39 PM EDT reply actions

Hey, that slight bit was of quasi-humor was badly needed while the NC State faithful were watching a shutout on Senior Day at the hands of a mediocre Maryland squad.

by Herb on Aug 11, 2009 6:45 PM EDT reply actions

Apparently giving of business is a real concern.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D8aAC4jrPM (original)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eslz06J9hFw

by softbatch on Aug 11, 2009 7:44 PM EDT reply actions

Worst call ever by a replay official, even worse than OU-UO (though it ended up having less impact on the game) because it involved the replay official reversing an obviously correct call: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2B5JtkaCeQ
The initial call was that the receiver was out of bounds, incomplete, 4th and a mile. Instead, the replay official decides that the pylon is in bounds for reasons which remain unclear to … well, pretty much everyone since the rule book says the opposite.

by SpartanDan on Aug 11, 2009 11:26 PM EDT reply actions

Funny thing about the NCAA rules committee is that it’s entirely made up…of coaches. You’d think that if the guys who piss and moan about the rule changes every year actually cared that much, they’d get themselves on the committee so they could do something about it…

by George T. Zebra on Aug 11, 2009 11:26 PM EDT reply actions

I am amazed that there has not been a bigger push for more referees in football considering all the variables and the importance of getting the calls right every time. Technology has helped but in my opinion there is no substitute for having more eyes available to watch more angles on every play.

by Isaac Scheidt on Aug 11, 2009 11:29 PM EDT reply actions