Wednesday, January 04, 2006

NCAA Ready to Blow the Whistle on Refs

If you thought instant replay was the solution, think again. The bowl season has been marred by colossal errors, and the NCAA is taking note. The governing body reportedly has agreed to discuss procedures used to select game officials for bowl games after controversial calls in the Alamo, Outback and Cotton bowls. Iowa fans flooded the NCAA with emails after linebacker Chad Greenway, highlighted in a screen capture from the ESPN telecast, was ruled to be offside on an onside kick that the Hawkeyes recovered. Greenway clearly was behind the line, but the crew from Conference USA ruled otherwise. The conference has acknowledged the mistake. "Take an officiating crew from the Sun Belt Conference. If those guys were as good as the guys we have working in [the Big Ten], they would be working in our league," Iowa athletic director Bob Bowlsby said. Bowlsby likely was talking about the crew from the Sun Belt that worked the Alamo Bowl, which ended on a wild play. And Texas Tech fans are upset that Keith Brown was not ruled down on Alabama's second play from scrimmage that resulted in the Crimson Tide's only touchdown in a 13-10 victory. The Sun Belt and WAC were the two conferences that did not use replay, yet all bowl games required the use of the technology. Critics say officials from the two conferences were not up to speed when it came to the use of replay.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Akron bowl game also ended with all the fans booing because Akron was denied an opportunity to try to come back. A penalty was called negating a fumble recovery, and the penalty was totally bogus (claimed the ball was touched by the DL prior to the snap).