NCAA refs vs. conference refs

[mcrowder]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

I disagree with MC on the one group idea for football. Not that its perfect now, but I think it would be worse then. There would be regional biases like there is in the NCAA basketball tournament where it seems the Final Four officials are always upper midwest and east coast (e.g. Big Ten, Big East, and ACC). Obviously, there are exceptions, but look at how many Final Fours guys like Jim Burr and Tim Higgins have worked in the past 20 years. I know guys that have complained about this for years and it is slowly changing, but I think the same thing would happen in football.

I think the reason that is a current possible problem in basketball is that those officials, while working nationally in the tournament, are still working for THEIR CONFERENCE. If there were no officials working for a conference at all - just officials working for the NCAA, there would be no reason for bias or even perceived bias.