I watched a lot of football this bowl season and thought the officiating mostly sucked. Making me believe that the SEC officials aren't as bad as I thought, more like they're about average.
I also watched more bowl games this year and there were a lot of bad calls. However, I usually give them a break because it's extremely difficult to catch every infraction when you have 22 moving parts.
I think that the game is harder to officiate than it was 30 years or so ago. The pace of the game is quicker than it was then with much more passing than running. The shift to the passing greatly increases the amount of offensive holding and of pass interferencecalls. Additionally, the increased televising of games and the of instant replay puts officiating under a microscope. Nobody noticed some of the missed calls then.
Excellent points but missed/botched calls were always noticed, just werent readily provable. Ill add one thing that really bothers me. Since officials are now told to err on side of caution on TOs, should the test for over ruling still be indisputable proof?
In fairness to the on field officials should all reviews be in real time instead of slow motion and freeze frame?
I’ve thought for a longtime that the game, both pro and college, has gotten away from the officials. Whether offensive line holding, defensive pass interference, any of the touching the QB fouls, or targeting, there is just too much going on, at too high a speed for the current crew to adequately deal with. I don’t know if the answer is more (or fewer) officials, better technology , or what, but the current mis-match leads to lots of blown calls. Don’t see it getting better.
