Totally off-topic, football question

ChuckElias · #1 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 12:10pm

I just read that four members of the officiating crew in the Wake Forest/Purdue football game have been disciplined, and have had an unspecified number of officiating assignments withdrawn. A Big Ten official said that the discipline was directly related to that game, but would not comment on specific reasons for his actions.

Did anybody see that game or have any information about what these guys did or didn't do that would cause this? I'm just curious, b/c I don't really remember hearing about this kind of action very often. So it must've been a glaring problem.

Chuck

mick · #2 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 12:26pm

Big Ten fires 4 Purdue-Wake Forest game officials

PARK RIDGE, Ill. Â— The Big Ten Conference dismissed four college football officials Wednesday after determining they did a poor job during a Sept. 21 game between Wake Forest and Purdue. "During the course of the game, these officials did not officiate well enough to meet Big Ten standards," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "Therefore, they will forfeit future officiating assignments." Wake Forest won the game 24-21.

Chuck,
I think it's proper to keep things quiet, although I'd like to know also.
mick

rockyroad · #3 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 01:14pm

I saw that article, and was wondering why only 4 of them??? Don't college games use a 6 man crew?? Did the other two do ok, but these 4 had lots of missed or bad calls? I don't get it...

ChuckElias · #4 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 01:25pm

It was a Big Ten/ACC interconference game. Four Big 10 officials and 3 ACC officials. Only the Big Ten has announced any disciplinary action.

JRutledge · #5 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 01:32pm

Quote:

Originally posted by rockyroad
I saw that article, and was wondering why only 4 of them??? Don't college games use a 6 man crew?? Did the other two do ok, but these 4 had lots of missed or bad calls? I don't get it...

No, they use 7 Man crews. And not every official has the same responsibility. Kind of hard to blame a Referee(white hat official) for passing plays or fumbles way down field when they would not be looking at that. Football is not like basketball where all official can have the same resposibility from time to time. Each official has specific responsiblity that rarely changes throughout a play. So it is very conceivable or reasonable that only 4 would get fired.

Peace

Jurassic Referee · #6 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 02:37pm

Quote:

Originally posted by ChuckElias
It was a Big Ten/ACC interconference game. Four Big 10 officials and 3 ACC officials. Only the Big Ten has announced any disciplinary action.

There were actually 4 ACC officials.One was a back-up to the 7 on the field.The report that I read said that the Big 10 office had identified eighteen(18)-WOW-blown or missed calls by the Big 10 guys during the game.I kinda found that hard to believe.

Brian Watson · #7 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 02:42pm

As a Purdue guy all my friends blamed the officials, I did not see it.

I did my best, "you can't blame them" spiel, then this happens.

I cannot remember any officials in any sport being dismissed mid-season (except for the mental midget bsseball umps that quit, err got fired, err quit), has this ever happened?

JRutledge · #8 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 03:30pm

Quote:

Originally posted by Brian Watson

I cannot remember any officials in any sport being dismissed mid-season (except for the mental midget bsseball umps that quit, err got fired, err quit), has this ever happened?

Happens quite often or when mistakes like this have happen.

In the most recent years Charles Range (please correct this name if I am wrong) was let go from the Big 12 for the Texas A&M and Texas Tech overtime/not overtime confusion on whether a last second shot counted or not.

In the ACC three officials were let go during a North Carolina/Virgina game when Virgina was allowed to win a game after a made NC FT (sub was at the table) and the officials did not properly stop the game. Virgina won the game at Virgina and the officials were suspended for the remainder of the season and to my knowledge not hired back the following year.

I am not sure of the conference or exactly the level, but 3 football officials were let go for a downed player and ruled not and then scored a TD. The Umpire, a Wing and I believe a Back Judge were all let go in the middle of the season. The game decided the conference championship and the team that scored this TD, should not on this play.

So it does happen. Like a current Big 10 Official tells us often during our Football meetings in the Central Official's Association in Chicago, "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it."

Peace

Andy · #9 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 04:41pm

Another interesting side note is that I saw that the Big 10 will not discipline Joe Paterno for running after and grabbing the referee at the conclusion of Penn State's game last week. I did see the highlight of Paterno on SportsCenter and certainly thought that it warranted some type of disciplinary action.

JRutledge · #10 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 04:53pm

Quote:

Originally posted by Andy
Another interesting side note is that I saw that the Big 10 will not discipline Joe Paterno for running after and grabbing the referee at the conclusion of Penn State's game last week. I did see the highlight of Paterno on SportsCenter and certainly thought that it warranted some type of disciplinary action.

I agree that it appears inconsistent, but we do not know the entire story. It is very possible that Dick Honig was asked from the league about the situation and was not offended or did not take exception to JoePa's behavior. The impression I got is that he did grab Dick Honig's shirt slightly and when he got is attention he backed off big time. I am not standing up for JoePa at all, but I am sure a report was filed and the Big 10 took that into consideration. At the very least we do not know the entire story on either of these sitautions. We do not know the calls the were messed up in the Purdue game and we do not know what was said by the officials to JoePa or what they thought about his actions.

It is very easy on the outside looking in what might have taken place.

Peace

BktBallRef · #11 (**permalink**) Thu Oct 03, 2002, 08:49pm

Quote:

Originally posted by JRutledge
In the ACC three officials were let go during a North Carolina/Virgina game when Virgina was allowed to win a game after a made NC FT (sub was at the table) and the officials did not properly stop the game. Virgina won the game at Virgina and the officials were suspended for the remainder of the season and to my knowledge not hired back the following year.

Not even close.

The game was between Duke and Virginia.

It was several years ago when Jeff Jones was still the coach at UVA.

The officials were suspended for one game each.

They continue to officiate in the ACC and SEC.

bigwhistle · #12 (**permalink**) Fri Oct 04, 2002, 08:23am

Quote:

Originally posted by ChuckElias
It was a Big Ten/ACC interconference game. Four Big 10 officials and 3 ACC officials. Only the Big Ten has announced any disciplinary action.

Why was this a split crew? Beginning in 2000, the NCAA changed its rule (1-1-4-b) so that "Officiating crews will be assigned from the same officiating organization."

The purpose of this was to keep the crew continuity and avoid the "half the crew take care of our conference, and the other half of the crew take care of our conference."

Schmidt MJ · #13 (**permalink**) Fri Oct 04, 2002, 03:36pm

I read an article on the internet that there were four questionable calls during the game and two of them were fairly obvious on the film. One involved a holding call that negated a long TD run. The other was a pass interference call that was made when the ball was pretty obviously uncatchable. It'll be interesting to see if the ACC officials are also disciplined like the Big 10 officials.