Canzano: Sunday thoughts, musings, and conspiracies
Officiating debates, GameDay signage, and saber-rattling from Congress.
Sunday thoughts, musings, and conspiracies…
• There were several controversial and egregious college football officiating calls on Saturday. The end of Miami-Cal (Targeting? Ineligible receiver downfield? Illegal forward pass?) belongs in an officiating clinic.
Is the ACC protecting Miami?
Cal coach Justin Wilcox doesn’t want to get fined but told reporters in the post-game news conference: “I’m not gonna talk about that, you can write whatever you want.”
• Sunday travel: Mario Cristobal and his Miami team departed Oakland at 2:31 a.m. and landed at 10:22 a.m. EDT. It sounds exhausting, but I doubt anyone in Berkeley slept.
• There was a lot of hype and chatter during the Miami-Cal game, pumping up Cam Ward for the Heisman Trophy. But if I had to cast my ballot today, running back Ashton Jeanty would get the top spot. The Boise State running back carried 13 times against Utah State for 186 yards and three touchdowns.
Jeanty has 1,036 yards in five games. He’s averaging 10.9 yards per carry and has 16 rushing TDs. Jeanty’s video highlights from Saturday are ridiculous. The best part of Jeanty’s Heisman campaign is that he’s driving it himself.
• Berkeley showed up big for ESPN’s College GameDay. The signage didn’t disappoint, including these three pics snapped in the wee hours of Saturday by Cal writer Avinash Kunnath.
Guess which is my favorite?
• It stinks that ESPN waited until Cal was a member of the ACC (Read: TV partner) before bringing College GameDay to Berkeley. Aaron Rodgers? Marshawn Lynch? Cal fans showed up big on Saturday and underscored the rabid college football enthusiasm in the Pacific Time Zone. Why did ESPN’s crew sound so surprised on air? The rest of us expected the scene to be wild. Those guys should get out more.
• The original (former) Pac-12 teams had a compelling weekend. Oregon won again and is 5-0. Washington beat Michigan and got a slice of revenge. ASU is 4-1 after another close victory. Cal had unbeaten Miami on the ropes in the fourth quarter.
I won’t stop saying it — there was nothing wrong with the Pac-12’s football product. It makes the conference’s inability to get a media rights deal done even more tragic and absurd.
• The college football ecosystem needs a viable power conference in the western part of the country. There’s some real concern that the SEC and Big Ten are going to systematically squeeze the sport and try to run away with all the money. The old-world Pac-12 helped serve as a check and balance alongside the Big 12 and ACC.
• The SEC and Big Ten commissioners are going to meet to talk about what they’d like to do with the playoff format. Three automatic bids for each of them? Four? Or will they put the health of their sport first and stick with a format that guarantees automatic bids only for the top-five ranked conference champions?
• Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark told the Houston Chronicle: “We’ve got to let this thing play out, see where it goes, and then have some thoughtful conversation to follow. One thing is for sure. Fans don’t want an artificial championship. They want a real championship, just like every other sport. There are no free passes. Let’s earn it.”
• I’ve had conversations with several interested lawmakers who agree and are tracking what the Big Ten and SEC do with the College Football Playoff. There’s some saber rattling going on.
One United States Senator told me: “I am already working on it. I’m optimistic that something could be done, given the conversations. They’re screaming at us to do something about NIL. It wouldn’t be difficult to get a committee set up on this.”
• Michael Baumgartner, who is running for Congress in Washington, told me the issue is on his radar as well. Baumgartner told me: “There are bigger fish to fry, but it’s a pretty important fish.”
Baumgartner, you may recall, co-taught a course titled “Insurgent Warfare and Football” with the late Mike Leach at Washington State and Mississippi State.
• I wrote a column on Saturday about a vintage photograph that Oregon State officials found buried at the foot of one of the stadium goalposts years ago. Give it a read if you have a few minutes and like a good yarn.
The column will leave you thinking: “Don’t f**k with Julio.”
• Oregon plays Ohio State this week. No, I don’t have extra tickets. But I do know that Autzen Stadium’s attendance record of 60,055 (vs. ASU in 2011) is likely to get smashed. I recently asked UO athletic director Rob Mullens how big the crowd was going to be.
Said Mullens: “It could be as big as we want it to be, but we've got to make sure the fire marshal is good with where we are.”
• The biggest crowd to ever see a live sporting event in Oregon was 63,000, who showed up at the CART Portland 200 IndyCar event in 1993. Keep an eye on that mark. If the Ducks are motivated to break a record, 63,001 is out there for them.
• Penn State drew 110,047 on Saturday for its game vs. UCLA. Just throwing that out there for some stadium context.
• UCLA never led that game and lost 27-11 to Penn State. The Bruins have only led opponents for a combined total of two minutes and 16 seconds this season. That’s how bad things are for UCLA fans. On the flip side, there are three teams this season that have not trailed in a game — Army, Indiana, and Texas.
• My photography team had an epic weekend. Naji Saker’s photo gallery of the Oregon State vs. Colorado State double-overtime game was outstanding. Tim Healy crushed it on Friday with his photo gallery of the Michigan State-Oregon game.
They’ll both be on the sideline at the Ohio State-Oregon game next Saturday.
• The weekly mailbag comes out on Monday. What’s on your mind? Drop a question in the comment section. Have some fun with it. Best questions get published.
• The most troubling officiating performance of the weekend had to come at the end of the UC Davis-Portland State Big Sky Conference game. The Vikings were leading No. 8-ranked UC Davis 26-21 and seemingly won the game on a pass breakup in the end zone at the end of regulation.
Until…
The referee told the clock operator to put one second back on the clock, giving the Aggies an extra play. I was at the stadium and confused because I watched the ball hit the turf, looked up, and noted the “0:00” on the clock.
The Big Sky told me replay review officials in the stadium instructed the referee to put a second back on the clock. The conference says the video supports that decision.
UC Davis used the extra play to score a game-winning TD (called on the field) that didn’t look like a certain TD. The ball carrier appeared to be out of bounds before the ball reached the goal line. After a lengthy replay review, the referee announced the play stood as called. He told the stadium that the ball carrier had possession of the ball in the end zone.
The lead official later informed PSU that there was not a conclusive replay angle available. So which was it?
The Big Sky confirmed to me on Sunday that there was not a conclusive video angle available and said the game officials followed proper protocol by sticking with the on-field call.
That said, I don’t think the referee did a good job of explaining any of it in real time — the clock or the final play.
On my way to the parking lot after the game, I bumped into Dante Chachere, Portland State’s quarterback. He had a terrific game. Chachere was sitting outside the stadium on a curb with his parents. I stopped to talk to him. He had tears in his eyes.
Don’t let anyone tell you it means more — only — in the SEC.
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It makes me sick to see the steady degradation of college officiating. It gets worse every year, and the conferences do nothing to improve it. Instead, they prevent anyone involved from publicly criticizing it for fear of looking as ridiculous as they are. And the referees making these calls walk away largely unaccountable for changing outcomes. Unreal.
I agree Jeanty is looking like the best player this year, but I fear he will finish 2nd or 3rd to maintain the almighty P4 dominance.
No more negativity! It’s been a good season so far!
Look, we can all debate calls and rules that 99% of us don't know exactly how the rule is written nor what emphasis the NCAA asks their officials to focus on.
But to infer that the conference tells or implies to their officials, including replay, to "protect" the ranked team or any other nonsense (like they have money riding on the game), is going too far.
It fuels a dangerous narrative that then grows a life of its own. Soon EVERY close or controversial call, correct or not, is viewed as something sinister and purposely missed.
In effect, you're saying the officials are cheating.
Officials miss calls, sometimes calls that seem obvious...especially so when viewing them from your La-Z-Boy in super slo-mo from multiple angles with a bias for or against a certain team.
Trust me, I get it. I have cringed watching a pitch or play that I butchered. It's embarrassing and humbling.
Something it isn't? Intentional.
Why? Because a league or conference does not imply or flat out tell their officials to cheat.
It's been in vogue for almost a decade now that when something doesn't go your way it's fraud, cheating, or some kind of a conspiracy.
SPOILER ALERT: Not everything is a conspiracy. It can simply be a missed, or perceived missed, call. 🤷🏻♂️