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Regarding "judgment calls": there are at least 2 kinds of judgment.
1. Judging whether a rule applies: this kind of judgment will be required of officials at every moment of every game, since we're always judging whether what we see falls within the rules. This is probably what the PAC-10 supervisor was thinking when he said that every call (and non-call) is a judgment call. This is not judgment in an interesting sense.
2. Judging whether a particular criterion applies to a case: the NCAA USC rule mentions throwing the ball "high" in the air, which it does not define. Without a definition, officials must rely on their judgment regarding what constitutes "high" (or indeed many other forms of USC).
The second kind of judgment is harder to develop and does not apply to every case. We have either explicit or implicit definitions of catch, fumble, muff, etc. Think of it this way: you can overturn a ruling of "catch," but you can't overturn a ruling of "high."
The OP required both kinds of judgment, and IMHO the official was clearly correct to rule that the ball was thrown high in the air, and so correct to throw the flag. Had some guts, too, in addition to good judgment.
I think that there will be a lot of meetings with skill position players this week to make sure they know this rule! I doubt NCAA will abandon the rule...
Regarding gravity: there's no such thing. The earth sucks.
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Cheers,
mb
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