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Ed S.'s avatar

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!

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John-Henry Cottrell's avatar

Teachers at lunch were talking about reffing for local events and how terrible it has become. It's not just parents, but now athletes that are rude to volunteers. Add at even lower levels, the fir-profit sports leagues make hurdles for parents to become refs, so they can charge every step of certification.

Less volunteers at the kids level, the less they move up through the system.

Quality of ref depends on the pool of people you can choose from.

Our society's focus on individuality happiness and trophies for everyone gets us these other rewards

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Ed S.'s avatar

We’ve noticed the same local issues here. The pandemic caused a number of experienced refs to quit, and athlete/spectator abuse toward refs hasn’t helped either, as you said. Really sad overall.

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Matt L.'s avatar

Ed, like most things in life, I’m beginning to feel just follow the $ money on these late inexplicable calls. The high ranked team gets the advantage. Is it the refs on location or conference officials at booths in NYC? In the same vein as Michigan saying ‘we don’t play on Fridays’ there is an entitlement and a protection of TV revenue at play

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Bruce Herbert's avatar

I wondered last week if that call at the end of the Miami-Virginia Tech game came from ESPN, rather than from the replay officials. ESPN desperately wants Miami to stay undefeated so that the ACC will be at least somewhat relevant.

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John Luttrell's avatar

I respect you thought on this but until I see solid evidence that refs are on the take I don’t put one cent on conspiracies.

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Matt L.'s avatar

My current thinking is perhaps the refs on site are following whatever the booth says, when it comes to targeting (or any controversial call that could decide a game). I could be wrong. But the non-call last night on what was clearly a targeting has me scratching g my head…

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Ed S.'s avatar

Great point, Matt. Money infiltrates everything and everywhere!

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Dwight Lilly's avatar

Agree, he will be cheated out of the award in favor of a player from a school that makes better economic sense.

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