Big XII Champ Crew
 

Anyboyd know who has been assigned the championship game??

Haven't heard, but if the Big XII gave Mike Leach any creditibility, noone from Oklahoma or Missouri is working it!

R was Clete Blakeman from Omaha. He's a former Nebraska quarterback who's moved up pretty quickly to that R position. From the looks of it, it was his normal crew that worked the game as I recognized some of the other officials. Don't know their names, just their faces.

Clete is an R now? Wow, 2 years ago he came to our GPAC NAIA meeting and was a relatively new H. Congrats to him!

I know a guy that has been on his crew (wasn't this year) and he said Blakeman will be in the NFL soon.

It sounds as though this person has moved up very quickly. Kudos to him!

Absolutely Juggling Referee. If they can do the job, then let them work.

On a different note, it looks like from the reports I have seen on ESPN and watched myself, that the Big East crew that worked the Pitt/West Virigina game struggled.

Did anybody else watch the game or parts of the game? If so, what did you think?

I saw parts of it John, but I was also talking on the phone with friends, so I didn't pay much attention to the game on TV.

I caught a lot of the game and the announcers were very critcial of several calls. There was apparently a "phantom" hold on a Pitt touchdown early in the game but I never saw a replay.

There was another 3rd down play late when Pitt was trying to run out the clock when Pitt picked up a first down on a run. A flag came flying in from the BJ to the sideline on a holding call on the receiver lead blocker (right in front of Dave Wanstedt, Pitt HC). They showed a couple replays but they weren't close enough to tell if he held or not. It definitely looked like he could. On one replay, the announcer circled the HL and indicated he was looking right at the block when he threw the flag. Not only was he not the one who threw the flag, he was also not looking at the block since he was watching the runner at that point.

On the next play (a replay of 3rd down), Pitt threw a pass to the same receiver again in front of Wanstedt. The pass was incomplete and the coach went nuts screaming for a hold. When they showed the replay, the DB definitely grabbed jersey but it had no impact on the receivers ability to move and the pass was about 10 yards over his head. It could have gone either way but I thought it was a fine no call.

Other than that, I don't remember anything too crazy. I was going back and forth between Pitt-WV and Mizzou-OU. What a crazy night of college football but a fitting end to a crazy season!

great description BisonLJ. I saw the two plays and would have described them exactly the same. Although, my gut tells me the OH late in the game wasn't big enough to call but he called it so there must have been something there.

Matter of fact, Clete was over in Europe a spring or two ago (can't remember when, but there was a write-up in the paper), working the NFL Europe league, with Ed Holuchi if I recall right.

Some of the guys are on other crews. I know for sure the U and the H aren't on his regular season crew.

Also, if he worked with a Hochuli in Europe, it was probably Ed's son, I think his name is Shawn.

Correct; Ed does have a son named Shawn who also officiates.

He is a deep official, I think he was a field judge when I saw him working in NFLE.

I think the SideJudge had a tough day. The problem is he called back a touchdown and a crucial first down on ticy tack holding calls (trying to be politicy correct), then let an obvious defensive holding go. All were calls involving the same receiver, so I'm not sure if he had an issue with that wide receiver. But the series of calls made him look pretty bad. Other than that I thought they did a pretty good job.