The Pac-10’s Awful Officiating, Let Me Show You It
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People from all over the country like to get in pissing matches about who has the worst referees and officiating crews. Being out here on the west coast, I can tell you without a doubt that the Pac-10 is the worst. Not only is it the worst, it’s dangerously bad.
We all remember last year’s Oklahoma/Oregon fiasco, where Oklahoma RECOVERED THE FOOTBALL and the referees (ON REVIEW) gave it to Oregon, which set up Oregon for the game winning score.
Then comes this. I’ll set it up for you. OSU/UW has a pretty intense rivalry (I remember going to quite a few of the games as a kid, and seeing a fight almost every time). UW has a young, hot shot QB named Jake Locker (the west coast Tebow, some call him). Anyway, he got knocked out in the first half, some Washington players took exception, and the game got feisty in the second half. 3 Oregon State players were ejected, as well as one UW player. What the officials missed was a UW player ripping off OSU running back Yvenson Bernard’s helmet, and repeatedly punching him in the face. Ridiculous. Anyway, so the game is running high on emotion, Oregon State is up and driving for the clinching score.
Unbelievable. Why have the system if you aren’t going to use it? To make matters worse, the Pac-10 director of instant replay was quoted in a Portland, Oregon paper as saying “it wasn’t that egregious. Unless you are an Oregon State fan.” How irresponsible.
Oregon State athletic director Bob DeCarolis responded, “The inability (of the review) judge to push the button and stop play is just flat-out wrong and unfair. And I think that person should be held accountable. A letter of reprimand doesn’t do it for me.”
“When the only people being held accountable for the mismanagement of the game are the student-athletes (referring to the penalties vs. Brandon Hughes, Bryan Payton, James Dockery) then something’s wrong - and if something more doesn’t happen, then the credibility of the conference is out the window.”
“God forbid if we had lost that game,” he said. “I had about 30 people use the same words with me … ‘you would have had a riot on your hands. It would have been like a soccer game in some third-world country. That’s how dangerous it could have been with the night, the alcohol and the total frustration with the mismanagement of that game.”
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Something needs to happen. Fans pay a lot of money for their tickets, TV shells out a lot of money for the games, and players put in a lot of hard work to play the game correctly. Yet the officials are the story. The officials screw it up, and yet are seemingly untouchable. What a shame.
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