The officiating was not good. The reversals on the field are ridiculous. One or two a game, fine, but four? These guys need to get it right. If I am a Bama fan, I'm not happy either because these guys were inept. The ACC officials are much better and you don't see a bias in their games. Look at Bama v U of Tenn. There were a lot of phantom interference calls. We cannot have our conference look like this. I know LSU did some stupid things, but the roughing call in the 1st quarter and the call against Hester were terrible calls. I can get over some of the holding calls or no calls. I would rather they just let the teams play. But let them play on both sides. I was at the game. And we started getting all those penalties right after Saban chewed a referee out. Even a knowledgeable Bama fan next to us said it was ridiculous. The other thing is that I still think #11 caugth the ball in the 4th quarter. However, after watching the replay last night you can clearly see the stripe turnover when the receiver hit the ground. The rule should be changed. He had control of the ball until the ground caused to roll.
in regards to that 4th quarter catch that was overturned... well you don't understand the rule. it's easy to say i'm biased because i'm an lsu fan, but whether or not he caught the ball is not the question. it's whether or not he had control of the ball and he didn't. yes the ground cannot cause a fumble, but this was not a fumble. look at it this way, if steltz had been right behind him to deliver a hit, would he have dropped it still? yes. would they have called it a fumble? no. the guy never moved the ball on his own. that said, we all know that the sec needs to work on its officiating. more than that, though, we need to work on ourselves. last year we were the same with penalties until the last three games of the year. will probably be the same this year but it shouldn't take 9 games to understand the rules. and again you're right, take away the questionable penalties on us and add the questionable no calls to alabama, we have roughly the same amount of penalties for the same amount of yards. so in conclusion :lol: the sec refs stink. terribly.
I think Bama got hosed on that reversal of the long completion in the fourth quarter. The ball is always going to move a bit when the player hits the gound, but that doesn't necessarily mean he didn't maintain possession/control throughout. Yeah, the ball touched the ground, but it looked to me like the receiver already had control of it, and it barely moved at all when he landed (and, thus, I would say he maintained control of it). I think the replay officials should be more deferential to the call on the field. They don't seem to adhere to the "conclusive evidence" standard.
I just have one small question. What the hell would moving the SEC office accomplish in regards to the refs?
many of the calls were bad, but... I believe the refs are told to call a loose ball a fumble and a close-call interception as complete so that it can be reviewed. Otherwise the play is not reviewable. The fact that so many calls were reversed only shows, IMO, the refs did their job correctly and the plays were reviewed for accuracy of the play.
I've said it before in other threads and it bares repeating. The talent in the SEC has outclassed the ability of the refs to officiate effectively. Actually, I've said it before, but Red was the first one I've seen make this point, so credit to Red.
The plays that got reversed were very close and at full speed it is almost impossible. Those plays could've been called either way on the field and the replay seals the call or overturns it. All the calls that were reversed for LSU's favor were obvious in the replays that they should've been reversed, except for the 2nd half 40yd pass that Brown? laid out for. To me I thought that was a catch. I didn't think there was enough evidence to turn the call around, even though it appeared the nose of the ball touched the ground, I didn't think it was conclusive enough. The other reversals were right on and obvious in my opinion.
