The blunders by ACC officials at the end of the Duke-Miami game two weeks ago reflects the oft-debated standard of officiating in college football this season.
Though none of the mistakes were corrected in that Hurricanes win, more corrections are being made than ever before in college football.
Coaches were successful on 24.6 percent of their challenges through the first eight weeks of games (through Oct. 24) worked by FBS crews, more than at any time since the system was put into place in 2006. The previous best success rate was 16.7 percent in 2013.
Additionally, reversals — plays that are reviewed with a stoppage and without a coach’s challenge — are occurring on 30.7 percent of reviews, also a historic high. The previous high was 30.2 in 2005.
Officiating crews are facing more scrutiny than ever before, and it’s happening before, during, and after games, as evidenced by the multiple-game suspensions handed out the day after the ACC crew missed several calls on the Miami’s game-winning, game-ending play. There were other examples last week that also aren’t included in the data: Nebraska’s winning touchdown pass against Michigan State featured a controversial call. An error was acknowledged by the Pac-12 last week in a game between Washington State and Arizona State. A line judge was suspended and the crew “downgraded,” according to wire service reports.
Tech coach Paul Johnson gave a simple reason why the challenges and reviews are succeeding with a never-before-seen frequency.
“Probably because they are making a lot of poor calls,” he said.
It’s obviously not that simple.
Doug Rhoads, the ACC’s former coordinator of officials who now works for ESPN and NBC Sports, said the number of reversals and successful challenges are increasing for lots of reasons.
First, there are more plays per game this season than in any other year. More plays equals more chances for reviews and challenges.
Second, technology is increasing and improving so that at many FBS games replay officials have more camera angles from which to view every play. More views provide more chances to spot something that was missed, uphold something that was correct or review something that seems curious.
Third, Rhoads said coaches are becoming increasingly comfortable with challenging plays, and officials have grown accustomed to the role that replay has in ensuring that the game is called correctly.
“If you make a mistake, it ain’t going to be hidden,” he said. “I was the best back judge in the history of college football. Why? Because we didn’t have all that. But I love the technology. I love how technology makes officials better.”
Through the first eight weeks, coaches had challenged 61 calls through 520 games worked by crews from FBS conferences. That 11.7 percent actually is one of the lower percentages of challenges per game since 2006. That coaches are succeeding more with their challenges despite fewer attempts, shows that they better understand when and what to challenge.
They are also helped by technology because coaches are in the booth are allowed to watch the TV feed of the game. They aren’t allowed to rewind plays, but they can see the same thing that viewers watching the game see. Before, they had to hope a replay was shown on the scoreboard.
“It’s never going to be perfect,” Georgia State coach Trent Miles said. “At least it gives you a chance to correct a call that was made in a split-second.”
Replay has come a long way in college football.
The Big Ten was the first to put it into place in 2004.
Bill LeMonnier, an official in the conference for 20 years, said the first replay rules fit on an 8-inch by 11-inch sheet of paper. Now, replay has its own rule book and case book.
When replay started, LeMonnier said learning and using it was like slowly moving from the shallow end of the pool to the deep end. Now, officials have to jump right into the deep end.
“It can be pretty complicated,” he said. “It’s a much bigger challenge than we started.”
Replay officials today can look at four screens in the booth. Some officials choose to look at just the main feed. Some will monitor all four, which shows different angles of the same play. That’s not all the angles that they can use. There are as many available as there are cameras broadcasting the game. When the game’s stakes are higher, there will be more cameras, a more seasoned production crew and better technology, all of which can help the replay official, the crew on the field, the coaches and the players, all of whom want the calls to be correct.
Should the replay official see something, he can press a button that will alert the on-field crew that the “previous play is under review.”
Through the first eight weeks of games the average replay lasted 1 minute, 15 seconds, which is 40 seconds less than than its first wide-spread use in 2005.
Rhoads said the replay officials in the ACC are usually retired college football officials who are subject to the same disciplinary measures as their on-field counterparts. LeMonnier, who retired three years ago and now works with the Big Ten as a trainer and evaluator, declined to say the background of the replay officials in that conference.
Rhoads said that in the previous nine years, 75 percent of the plays reviewed in the 10 conferences fall into one of three categories: catch/no catch, scoring plays and fumble/no fumble.
He said catch/no catch, which is approximately 34-37 percent of the reviewed plays, is the toughest play to rule because of the speed and skill of the players and that it’s usually difficult to find a definitive camera angle because of the nature of the catches.
“That’s (more than) 30 percent of the things that can happen in a game that you now fix and do it in less than a minute and a half,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 beauty of replay.”
But they are still human and capable of mistakes, no matter how good the technology they are using may be.
Rhoads said he has watched the final eight-lateral play in the Duke-Miami game dozens of times. While some of the errors such as the block in the back were obvious, the pivotal no-call involving one of the backward passes isn’t clear. He said he still can’t tell if the player passed the ball before his knee touched the ground. He’s watched it from numerous angles over and over and it’s still not clear.
“If you don’t know from the video, then you know,” he said. “Then it stands.”
Neither Rhoads nor LeMonnier agree with the premise that officials shy away from making some calls because they know that replay is there as a crutch. Rhoads said the officials are hired, assigned and kept because they are good at what they do and are confident in their calls. Those who aren’t are disciplined.
Rhoads goes through the staggering math that’s subject to immediate scrutiny in the today’s social-media world.
Using approximations, he said that because there are eight officials on the field, 180 plays in a game, 100 games in a conference in a year there are 144,000 opportunities for officials to make right or wrong decisions in a season.
“Good officials get paid to make the difficult ones,” he said. “You are never going to eliminate mistakes. Replay fixes the major ones.”
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