Collegiate Sports

[ksquared]

Now I'm ticked...
but in deference to NLionGuy's gentlemanly demeanor will try to maintain my decorum and use restraint in my commentary on the following from today's NY Times... emailed to me by my Notre Dame coworker BTW...

Whine Whine Whine. All teams have had their share of bad calls... take last year's MI-MSU game. Clock runs out with MI in the lead... YIPPEE we won... no wait a minute... the MSU timekeepers decide to reset it and give MSU another chance. Boohoo we lost. This year's Notre Dame game...

All over. Move on.

I read this with mild annoyance until I got to the last paragraph.

"I would like to see us have another team in the Big Ten,
period. I would like to see us have 12 teams.* When they
were trying to get Notre Dame, I had no problem with that.**
If they would want to come east and get Syracuse, Rutgers***
or Pitt, I wouldn't have any problem with that."

* I'd like to see one less.
** I didn't have a problem with Notre Dame either... at least they were from the midwest. They were the first choice...
***RUTGERS!... RUTGERS!... ACADEMICALLY AND ATHLETICALLY BEREFT RUTGERS!... Paterno's strength has always lain in his scheduling... talk about a guaranteed slaughter... sheesh... poor Rutgers... If they are going to bring in another team... elevate Western Michigan or another MIDWESTERN school... keep the east coast out of in our conference.

JMhotheadedO

Though bottom line... something has to be done about the quality of the officiating. It does stink big time this year.

With sincere apologies to NLionGuy...
miffed.ksquared

Big Ten Football Coaches Press for Full Review of Officiating

October 17, 2002
By FRANK LITSKY

Joe Paterno, Penn State's longtime football coach, is
normally an affable man, but this season he has been
enraged by officiating that he believes contributed to his
team's two losses. Last month, the 75-year-old Paterno
provided a striking image when he chased and grabbed an
official after a loss to Iowa.

Now other Big Ten coaches, including Joe Tiller of Purdue,
Lloyd Carr of Michigan and Ron Turner of Illinois, say they
agree with Paterno and his athletic director, Tim Curley,
on the need for an overall review of conference
officiating. Several of them said they believed it was time
for the conference to institute instant replay. And the Big
Ten finds itself besieged by its own member institutions
over the quality of its football officials.

In Paterno's weekly news conference Tuesday, he made it
clear that he felt poor officiating contributed heavily to
Penn State's 27-24 overtime loss to Michigan in a Big Ten
game on Saturday. Yesterday Curley backed Paterno by asking
the Big Ten to review all aspects of its football
officiating, and he mentioned "crew assigning,
accountability, training, use of technology."

Paterno's anger was fueled by a pass play in the last
minute of regulation against Michigan. Tony Johnson caught
a pass from Zack Mills along the sideline on Michigan's
23-yard line that would have set up a potential
game-winning field goal for Penn State, but the officials
ruled the catch out of bounds.

College rules require the receiver to have only one foot
inbounds. Television replays showed Johnson had both feet
inbounds.

Paterno was also unhappy about the low number of penalties
called against Michigan: one in the game against Penn State
last year, two this year. (Six penalties were called
against Penn State each year.) Paterno noted that three
game officials working this year's game live in Michigan.

On Monday, Curley telephoned Jim Delany, the Big Ten
commissioner, and later put his feelings in writing. He
asked Delany to have the conference review how it recruits,
trains and assigns officials and how the officials are held
accountable for their work.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Curley said: "We're all
trying to get the best possible officiating. My reading is
that he's open. Obviously it's emotional. We're coming off
a couple of emotional games. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe all
is O.K., but we don't see any negatives about having a
comprehensive review.

"My concern isn't only Penn State, but across the board. I
think we have a trend going in the wrong direction, too
many mistakes in officiating and having a big impact on the
outcome of games. There just seems to be more of it."

Big Ten game officials are assigned by Dave Perry, the
conference's supervisor of football officials for 13 years.
The performance of game officials is reviewed after every
game.

In a one-paragraph statement, Delany said the Big Ten would
"provide a candid and detailed response" to Curley's
request for a review. Otherwise, a Big Ten spokesman said,
Delany and Perry would be unavailable to the news media
this week.

Criticism of Big Ten game officials is not new. After Penn
State's 42-35 overtime loss to Iowa on Sept. 28, Paterno
grabbed one of the officials and complained about his
calls. After Purdue's 24-21 loss to Wake Forest on Sept.
21, Tiller, the Purdue coach, complained about the
officiating, and after a review the Big Ten said it would
withhold assignments from four of those officials.

Tiller said yesterday that he sympathized with the
conference because of its talent drain, with several game
officials having moved on this year to the National
Football League. He said the Big Ten had to do more to
educate and train officials. He also talked of instant
replay, which the N.F.L. uses but colleges do not. After
the 2000 season, Big Ten coaches voted in favor of instant
replay, but their university presidents and athletic
directors voted it down.

"I haven't been in favor of instant replay," Tiller said,
"because all college football, not just us, would have to
have it. But after what we've gone through this year, I
know the Big Ten can afford it. There will be a big push
for it at our next meetings, and I will lead the charge if
I can. The technology is there and we are not taking
advantage of it, so who are the greater fools? The greater
fools are us."

Turner, the Illinois coach, said, "We have to look at how
we hire, fire, reward, how we penalize, and base it all on
performance." Turner has been a major proponent of instant
replay. Carr, the Michigan coach, whose team benefited from
calls last Saturday, nevertheless said he hoped the Big Ten
office would understand what the problems were.

Paterno explained his feelings toward officiating this way:


"I have always felt that the officials have a tough job,
and in most cases, they do a good job. When you look at
tapes, you see things that you wonder why they weren't
called. I am sure that happened with the people who play
against us. You don't expect officials to be able to be
perfect, but you get a little concerned when it gets a
little bit lopsided.

"I am not sure exactly what can be done. All we want them
to do is to take a good look at what is going on. We could
be 100 percent wrong. I am trying to put this thing behind
me."

Since Penn State joined the Big Ten 10 years ago, making it
in effect the Big Eleven, there have been undercurrents in
the conference. Penn State was viewed by some as a
newcomer, an outsider, an Eastern team in a Midwest league.


"I don't sense that," Curley said. "We've been accepted.
It's a positive thing. It's been good for Penn State and
good for the Big Ten."

Tiller said he did not detect a bias against Penn State.


"They've had horrible luck this year with calls that have
not gone their way," he said. "But I can say the same thing
about us. When I came into the conference in 1997, I
thought there was a bias against us. It seems calls were
not made or were occurring at most inopportune times and
having a direct impact on the outcome of games."

Paterno did not say if he detected a bias against Penn
State. When he was asked if the Big Ten needed another team
from the East, he said:

"I would like to see us have another team in the Big Ten,
period. I would like to see us have 12 teams. When they
were trying to get Notre Dame, I had no problem with that.
If they would want to come east and get Syracuse, Rutgers
or Pitt, I wouldn't have any problem with that."


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/17/sports/ncaafootball/17COLL.html?ex=1035875843&ei=1&en=03f6....