The Wiz compiles sort of a greatest hits post of officiating calls from the Arkansas-Florida game here. Make sure you listen to the tone in Gary Danielson’s voice as he reviews the call against Malcolm Sheppard. Like I said, I’m not the only one feeling it.
By the way, Gator fans, the point here isn’t that Florida won the game because of the refs, or that there’s a conspiracy to put Florida and Alabama together in the SECCG. It’s that too often SEC officiating is sub par. Those are the kind of calls that get made by lazy officials who find themselves swayed by a program’s or a player’s reputation instead of keeping up with what’s actually happening on the field in front of them. And then get excused by people like Rogers Redding who are far more concerned about ass covering than accountability.
If nothing else, these kids need to feel like they didn’t get cheated giving their best. How hard is that to acknowledge?
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UPDATE: Per the SEC, “(a)fter video review, there was no evidence on the video to support the personal foul penalty called on Arkansas midway through the fourth quarter.” That’s a relief.
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UPDATE #2: Terrell Owens (wait a minute… Terrell Owens? WTF?) thinks the refs are a bunch of dirty cheaters.
Get The Picture 
the sec is going to have to open up their big wallet to professionalize its officiating operation, or they will pay for it in the form of surrendered credibility.
and that call against sheppard was a classic basketball flop staged for an official who was standing right there and 20 yards away from the play.
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The umpire that was standing there was staring at the play, and moved on without dropping his flag. Funny that the referee who was 20 yards away thought it worthy of a penalty.
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Agreee re. professionalizing officiating.
Poor officiating makes it more likely that there is going to be a major bribery scandal in the next 5 years in college football, because the wild inconsistency in officiating performance, and the lack of accountability re. the same, makes it easy for a paid official wishing to influence the outcome of a game to “hide” bad calls favoring one team. Such “paid” calls would be easier to spot and would stand out more if the overall level of officiating was improved by professionalization.
SEC footbal is a multi-billion dollar business and there is no reason all aspects of it should not be run as such.
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>> It’s that too often SEC officiating is sub par
No diggity, no doubt. Though I’m not sure if any other conference is better.
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That was the worse than the celebration call against AJ. The FL lineman came at 96 to hit him and 96 defended himself. What was he supposed to do, just let himself get hit?
If I’m Petrino, I don’t stop complaining about this call-ever.
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It wasn’t right. It was a bad deal. And it will forever be in the mind of Bobby Petrino Meyer and in the mind of our football team. … So we’ll handle it. And it’s going to be a big deal.
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no it wont, your arkansas (meaning you go to the title game) and off our schedule for like 5 years…go cry to your mother petrino.
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sorry “your arkansas (meaning you go to the title game)” should have stated that you don’t go to the title game…
…but I guess that is obvious
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Actually, it should be “you’re Arkansas” followed by whatever blather is typical for a UF fan.
I guess grade-school grammar isn’t always obvious.
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B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but…
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Really quick overview of the fouls from a Gator fan:
1) That “unnecessary roughness” could have been unsportsmanlike for the arm pump Sheppard does over Gilbert. The flop exacerbated it. I wouldn’t call the aborted block roughness.
2) The PI is just indefensible. Should have been a no call.
3) The Cooper non-PI was definitely not just playing the ball by him, but I think the Arkansas player has a hand on his jersey, too. I remembered noticing that live, but the video doesn’t seem to show that, or at least not clearly.
These penalties helped substantially. But Florida scored — they weren’t given the points — and wouldn’t have been in the most dire of straits without them, or the bad spot on the second down. Please let this be a call for better officiating across the board (y’know, so you all don’t get screwed out of a win over LSU), not just a defense of a team that got a little help from awful calls this weekend.
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>>That “unnecessary roughness” could have been unsportsmanlike for the arm pump Sheppard does over Gilbert
Bull. Gilbert tried to be cute and engage Sheppard miles away from the play and got knocked on his ass. I don’t blame Sheppard for woofing a bit after that
>>These penalties helped substantially. But Florida scored — they weren’t given the points — and wouldn’t have been in the most dire of straits without them
I don’t get you here. No, they weren’t “given” points, but they were given at least 30 free yards on the drive, maybe even 45 if you count the offensive PI no-call.
If I were a Gator fan (*shudder*) I would just keep my mouth shut about this game. You guys trying to justify any of it in the face of the widespread outrage on the interblogs this week makes you look pretty stupid.
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We don’t care if the ref’s are bad, they are always bad and no, we don’t shudder either. We just win titles in spite of consistently bad officiating.
You should try it some time, it’s really fun. First, however, you should work on beating us more than once a decade. See you in Jville poodles, I hope the ref’s blow another call in our favor so we can do this all over again and I can listen to the whining about there is pro-florida conspiracy.
ps…there is a pro-florida conspiracy…it’s called talent.
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We’d hate to see Florida lose about 2 more games a year.
(And for the AJC/790 The Zone/etc. to actually engage in “journalism.”)
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But we’re too busy talking to our pal Paul Johnson on the McDonald’s Phone Hotline Thingy, and did we mention that we love McDonald’s and Paul Johnson, as well as Paul Johnson and McDonald’s?
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I’m at a loss right here after reading this Gator fan’s post. Why would he want better officiating across the board? Seems to me and every other non-Florida fan that the Gators have been the recipient of the VAST majority of these totally bogus calls for the better part of 3 years now. Why would they want this changed now? Does it not seem like every week Florida fans have to come out and defend MULTIPLE bad calls that benefited their team in the previous game? As a Dawg fan, I can’t remember the last time I had that opportunity.
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no, not at all we don’t come out every week to defend anything. We just enjoy listening to the constant whining from the teams we beat about whatever they can find. The officials always suck. I begin watching every gator game wondering if they will screw us, as they have done numerous times.
The difference is we don’t incessantly whine about everything gator or tebow like the poodles from UGA. Do you really think that Urban met up with the officials and Verne and Gary and Tebow and set a plan of action. Are you that sad and pathetic.
Maybe the officiating is the reason you only beat us once every decade…or maybe it because our team is better than yours.
To all you conspiracy wackos, where were that help when we got called for a non-existent holding when demps scored a TD at kentucky. Two plays later, Tebow got knocked out. I guess the refs didn’t get gator slush money that week.
suck it poodles, work on not getting embarrassed again and stop the constant, envious, whining.
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By the way, considering when the yellow flag comes into the picture on that personal foul call, I think it’s safe to say that it was already out of the refs pocket by the time Shepherd pumped his arm.
He got a personal foul for unnecessary roughness after bumping shoulders with an opponent who was trying to knock him over. Is it his fault that the Florida player fell to the ground like the delicate little flower petal that he is?
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“Is it his fault that the Florida player fell to the ground like the delicate little flower petal that he is?”
finally, some semi-decent smack talk on the page rather than the constant “everyone loves the gators and they refs are helping them and won’t help us” bs.
and for Mr. Turd Fergeson, beware because that team of “flower petals” doesn’t seem to have any problem running over you tiny yorkie terriers year in and year out.
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I’m prepared to come over to the dark side, partially. I still don’t think there’s a grassy knoll conspiracy inside the SEC officiating office. I think there’s a lot of mediocrity and butt covering.
To the extent the zebras can have a reflex against the helmets with the G’s on them, they can have the same reflex in favor of the saintly Gators. Tim Tebow is passionate, A.J. Green is a hoodlum.
Duke and North Carolina basketball teams have for years enjoyed a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of free throws over their opponents. The same biases can apply to football.
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Remember when it was fun to pretend that the SEC officials had no bias and the conspiracy theories were just sour grapes ramblings from a disgruntled fan base? Yeah, those were the days.
If the SEC doesn’t get a handle on this quick-like, there will be a widespread lack of faith in the integrity of the officials like in the NBA.
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Great post.
The SEC risks alienating fans with inconsistent, poor quality refing. Officials should be instructed that throwing the flag is like making line calls in a tennis match – ‘if you didn’t clearly see it out, don’t make a call … just keep playing”.
There is no way the official that made the personal foul call on Arky #98 saw anything except a Florida lineman falling on his tail. SCDawg is right. That call was worse than the AJ call against LSU and as bad as the no-call on the yank on Caleb King’s facemask in the 4th quarter of the ASU game.
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You may not want to say it, Senator, but I will. Refs have been in bed with UF for years.
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Refs have been in bed with uf for years? Like when the ut corner slapped dallas baker right in front of a ref, who ignored the ut player and called a pf on baker, putting ut in field goal range to win the game? Like the 4 incorrect fumble calls against uf when they played fsu in 2004 (acc refs though)?
I’m fairly confident that under spurrier, meyer, and zook, uf has consistently been one of the most penalized teams in the conference and country.
Yes the calls went florida’s way last week. You guys trying to extend the “refs hate georgia” conspiracy to include some favortism for uf is insane, though.
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I called that PF in the UF/UT game. Jerm Foley’s check didn’t clear that week.
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The ref that said Jabar Gaffney had possession for a TD vs. UT was probably in bed with someone…
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The problem, I’m afraid, is that there really ISN’T much that the SEC is risking. I mean, we can keep saying that they risk alienating fans, or that they risk losing credibility, etc. But what, really, do they have to be worried about?
We’re all going to keep watching the games. ESPN and other outlets are going to continue to hype our conference to no end. And the higher-ups are going to continue to do whatever it takes to bring in millions and millions of dollars.
Oh, they might have to deal with the occasional bitch-fest from the fans, but I’m pretty sure we’ve already seen the extent of their willingness to right their own wrongs: a “Whoops” statement from Redding that makes absolutely no difference in the world whatsoever.
And of course, if a coach on the losing end of these awful calls bitches about it, he’ll actually endure MUCH more of a blow to his image than anyone else.
Maybe I’m missing something here … but I just don’t see any reason to think any of this is going to change at any point in the near future. I know that, no matter how excellently we play, we’ve got a 0% chance of beating Florida in Jacksonville, but I’m still going to tune in … along with millions and millions of other fans.
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Wow. Didn’t UGa have a game this weekend? The refs hate UGa, so they were crooked in UF’s favor against Arky. Awesome stuff.
By the way, everyone and their grandmother (including Gator fans) correctly called the excessive celebration penalties against Charles and AJ bull. It seems like the refs learned from it by not making similarly crappy celebration calls in the UF-Arky game (ie, Tebow being fired up after key conversions, UF’s group celebration following the game winning fg). Why is this maddening to you or will you sleep easier only after every team is screwed by that call? Seems like those refs have taken corrective action, which is all anyone really could reasonably ask for.
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Hahahaha! Man really? Can’t we all just agree that UF is NEVER, and I mean NNNNEEEEVVVEEEERRRR, going to get called for taunting and/or excessive celebration as long as Tebow is in there. Let’s just watch the UGA/UF game and see who gets hosed by the refs.
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You’re not paying much attention. UF has been called for excessive celebration several times this season. Tebow AND Louis Murphy got called for excessive celebration in the BCS title game.
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If you’re going to cite an example, it might as well be a truthful one. ACC refs threw a hankie on Tebow in the NC Title game against OU; not SEC officials. It was for taunting an OU player, NOT for the over-the-top celebratory japeries that he’s been given a complete pass on in SEC games since 2006, over three years now.
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Why hasn’t there been a call on Tebow’s fist pumping, helmet pressing, or gator chomps? I’m not a Tebow hater, by any means. I have respect for the guy and the caliber of athlete he’s become. But, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. Whether Tebow has malicious intentions in mind with his celebrations or not, he takes it overboard a lot of time… and, he’s never been penalized for it.
Oh well, as an Alabama fan, on behalf of my SEC brethren, I don’t foresee any fist pumping, helmet swinging, or gator chomps when UF meets the business end of Alabama’s defense in ATL this year.
Like it or hate it, this is still the best conference in all of collegiate football.
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first of all, the rules on celebration are directed against anything toward the crowd, the opposing team, or pre-planned/synchronized celebrations (TO and Ocho Cinco stuff).
You are allowed to celebrate a good play. It is the same reason every defensive player does the same thing Tebow does after a sack or INT. Every player, including bulldogs (puppies).
I know you all hate Tebow so much but do you really want the SEC to become a league where 15 yard penalties are thrown for this crap. What happened to you against LSU was wrong but two wrongs don’t make a right.
Wow, can you guys whine and whine and whine. Maybe if you team did not stink this year, you wouldn’t have been in that position. Just try and beat us on the field and if you don’t expect a bad call or two against either team, you have not been watching SEC football for the last 15 years.
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I’m glad that the SEC over-penalized Georgia so that Tebow can safely continue his post-play antics. I was really, really, really worried that refereeing crews were about to flag him for excessive celebration(s).
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Umm … I’m sorry, where is it that I said that the questionable calls made by the refs in the UF-Arkansas game had anything to do with some sort of hatred for Georgia?
Answer: Nowhere.
And maybe you’re right. Maybe the refs did correct themselves w.r.t. excessive celebration calls. But then …
1. We’ll see if the calls from this point forward seem even across the board, or if Tebow flapping his arms like a jackass after falling forward for 2 yards continues to get overlooked FAR MORE frequently than, say, a WR simply running toward his teammates, or a RB simply pointing toward the sky.
2. That doesn’t explain the absurd personal foul call and pass interference call made against Arkansas on Saturday. (Not to mention the mysterious no-call after Cooper rode the back of the Arkansas DB.)
And why is this maddening to me? Because I, like most people, want to believe that I’m watching a fair fight. And I’d really hate it if a team of Arkansas football players played their friggin’ hearts out only to be jobbed in the end by a crew of biased refs.
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Bright Side–
Georgia gets flagged for it nearly every week. If we could just get that to stop, I’d be content.
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“Why is this maddening to you or will you sleep easier only after every team is screwed by that call? Seems like those refs have taken corrective action, which is all anyone really could reasonably ask for.”
Actually, yes. I would feel a lot better if every team was called for it on what seemed like a fair (albeit ludicrous application of the) call. Fairness is all we are looking for. And if you truly believe that the refs have corrected this by not calling it, go back and review the UGA game on Saturday. Wooten gets flagged for tossing the ball down after a great catch, out of emotion, not to show off. Yet when Cox gets sacked, the Vandy player pulls out Cox’s towel and throws it up into the air… no call. Maybe he too was caught up in the emotion of his play. I’m sure he was happy. But a dumbass dance would have sufficed and the fact that he took something off a Georgia players body and threw it into the air without being flagged is just beyond me.
Fairness is all we ask. Screw everyone or screw no one.
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I agree mostly. The only thing I see that will cause a change is when the players start believing that the refs are against/for them. Then the game can get out of hand and someone can get hurt by the cheap shots that either a.)A player feels he can get away with or b.)we are getting flagged for no reason why not make it worth it.
Hoepfully it doesn’t come to this.
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SEC fans should start going to their stadiums with yellow kerchiefs in their pockets.
When the refs make these awful calls, the crowd can flag the refs. 90K flags, all at once, on national TV. Besides being visually stunning, the SEC wouldn’t be able to ignore that, because they get so much revenue from geing on television.
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That would be fantastic. I still don’t think it’d change anything, … but still, this needs to happen.
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Until we get flagged again, for flagging. Then we are 30 yards in the hole.
It would be funny as hell to see a ton of hankies fall down from the stands though
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If it comes to that, I’d stop low-enough to throw flags at away games in hopes of screwing the other team over.
After that happens once or twice, you’d hope the refs would attempt to get their act together.
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B-b-b-but, we got called for something questionable that one time! Why doesn’t everyone love us as much as ESPN does?
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The fun part of the personal foul call is watching the tape over and over and seeing that eager gator lineman getting knocked on his ass.
boom mfer!
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I’m no conspiracy nut, but the first time I KNEW that refs could be influenced was the Pitt/WVU game a few years ago. If WVU had won the game the game, they would have played in the title game. You simply can not watch that game and not think that the refs were trying to give the game to WVU. I had the same feeling Saturday watching the Arky/UF game. Now I am not saying that UF would not have won the game anyway, but games should be decided by the players on the field and not the refs and the integrity of football is diminished a great deal when you have to wonder the impact that poor officiating has on a game. When it goes so far that it makes you wonder if its purposeful, it makes you want to quit watching. If I wanted to see fixes, I’d watch professional wrestling. I hope that Petrino is all over this today and that some corrective action is taken. If this happens to us in two weeks, I will not be responsible for my actions.
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Yeah, I remember thinking the same thing watching that Pitt/WVU game.
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Some more goodness:
LSU v. GA
Referee: Marc Curles • Umpire: Ronnie Jones • Linesman: W.Randall Kizer • Line judge: Michael Shirley • Back judge: Michael Watson • Field judge: Greg Thomas • Side judge: Jess Dupuy • Scorer: Joe Sturniolo •
Ark/FL
Referee: Marc Curles • Umpire: Ronnie Jones • Linesman: Randall Kizer • Line judge: Michael Shirey • Back judge: Michael Watson • Field judge: Greg Thomas • Side judge: Jesse Dupuy • Scorer: Steve Howard
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Riley Cooper gets away with an awful lot of OPI.
That no call against ARK.
The jersey tug for a TD against LSU.
And he didn’t just learn that in the last two weeks.
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I hate to think this is the truth, but Tebow and Cooper are white players, and Arky’s player was black. Again, Tebow doesn’t get the taunting call he deserves, but Wooten makes a great play and gets taunting. I’m starting to think Brando might not have been out of his mind to suggest racism is playing a part in these calls. Cooper’s PI was blatant, and repeated, and it’s never called. Does AJ Green get away with that? No.
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Actually, A.J.’s gotten pretty good this season at using the pushoff to get separation.
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And at first it looked to me like he was holding onto a Vandy player’s jersey with his left hand while throwing the ‘key’ block on the Caleb King touchdown catch/run.
But after watching repeated TV reruns of the play on The SEC Network and hearing neither Andre nor Dave or whatever their names were announcers talk about the hold because it was so obvious, it then dawned on me that A.J. had been given a get out of jail free card for the remainder of the season, or at least on that play, due to the job given to him in the LSU game. As exciting as it is to think that is, more likely than not, it was just another missed call because the refs were so shocked that we had a play go that long, they were out of position to call it against A.J.
If anybody cared or would listen, Vanderbilt has its SEC ref bad-call conspiracy theories too but sadly for them, just as it is for us and for Arkansas, The SEC Home Office simply does not care. That’s understandable because right now entering into the second half of the season the Home Office has better things to do such as focus solely on the Go Gator! v. RTR! game. Any officiating problems would only distract them from thinking that game into existence.
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Specifically I was speaking of the celebration penalties. Holding and such should be called whenever blatant, even when our guys do it (and we do it too often). It would be hard to find racial motivation behind every-down calls that don’t stand out in the game, however. What strikes me is the obvious difference in the way Tebow’s wild celebrations are treated from the minute movements the African American players getting flagged for excessive celebration are doing. Scott getting flagged for pointing up, for example. How is that any worse than Tebow’s two minute-wonder-showzin?
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really, your playing the race card? unbelievable, you dawgs will grab at any straws, won’t you. Why don’t you do a nice analysis of penalties by those refs and the colors of the players before you spout non-sense.
Can I add that one to my list of reason’s dawgs will give after we beat them. I don’t think any of the other reasons I have heard are quite as entertaining/funny/completely asinine as racism.
Yep, Tebow is white and the refs and SEC are racist against black players (oh wait, I forgot to add the requirement that they be black UGA players)
WOW!
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They could also be black Arkansas players.
Just saying.
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What is disturbing about the Cooper non call is that Louis Murphy did the same damn thing to one of our guys last year in Jax and didn’t get called. This leads me to believe that the UF coaches are teaching their receivers this technique even though it is illegal. Why? Because they KNOW that it WON’T GET CALLED.
On a semi related note, I brought a Big 10 friend of mine to the UGA v S Carolina game this year and commented about the referee before the game started. He was shocked that I knew who the guy was just by looking at him, I told him that everyone knew who the worst refs in the SEC were and which ones were going to job us at some point. Sure enough there was a bogus call at the end of the first half. At some point you have to question the integrity of the entire system.
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“Louis Murphy did the same damn thing to one of our guys last year in Jax and didn’t get called.”
True, the slingshot of Louis didn’t get called last year v. Florida.
If Riley Cooper or other Florida receivers do the same thing to us this year, the silver lining is that our secondary at last is finally getting close enough to opposing receivers to at least put themselves in a position to be slingshotted by in a no-call. So far this season, I don’t think opposing receivers have needed to do that because they are so wide open.
I’m thinking that the SEC refs at least want to give us a moral victory v. Florida like the one they gave us against LSU and the one they gave Arkansas against Florida because SEC Championship TV ratings are what it’s all about.
But here is Slive’s recurring nightmare: If protege Mullins beats mentor Meyer in Starkeville and we also win against Florida (real not moral) and then win out, don’t we get to take our three losses (maybe four if we lose to a Tech in a non-league game) into the championship game assuming Lane loses another league game and we get a chance to avenge the first half thumping that Nick gave us last year ?
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Yes. And if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass hopping. And I think we’re more likely to see a winged frog this year than the Bulldogs playing in the Dome in December.
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Your theory is technically sound, but it lacks a certain thing we usually call realism.
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fine bulldog fans, take away louis murphy’s TD last year, re-calculate the score and you still got whacked.
are you the same clown who brought up the race card.
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You’re arguing a straw man by thinking that biased officiating made the difference in the game last year. No one has argued that.
But wouldn’t it be nice for your UF pride to know that your team beat ours on a fair playing field? I would certainly rather win a fair contest than one tainted by unfair officiating.
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….and to add to what we have up here, Murphy or one of the Caldwell’s (I can’t remember which) used that same “slingshot move” last Sunday without a call, which ESPN actually highlighted as a bad no-call. I guess they forgot where he went to school. I think its pretty safe to say these UF receivers are absolutely being taught this by the coaches. Its either that or they just recruit the guys who know the “slingshot move” which I’m sure you’ll hear out of some Florida homers.
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Yeah, that’s it. Basically Florida is taking the approach that they are going to play so aggressive and push the envelope with their receivers and DB’s and MAKE the officials call penalties on them. Because the media has been pimping Florida for 30 years–yes, that’s 10 years before they were ever worth a shit, the officials have a hard time making those calls consistently.
Someone has to Spurrier Florida. That is, much like Spurrier did with FSU, SOMEONE has to take this crap public and say what everyone else sees.
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“Because the media has been pimping Florida for 30 years–yes, that’s 10 years before they were ever worth a shit”
……………..and 30 years since UGA was worth a shit too!
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I only caught the end of Ark/Fla, so I didn’t see the Tebow flailing celebration after a first down. Does anyone know where to find a video of it? As I was trying to find it, I was surprised to find a call I didn’t remember from last year’s NCG where Tebow was actually flagged for taunting an OU player with the Gator chomp. Not surprised that he did it, just surprised that they flagged it. The crew was from the ACC.
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T-Lud,
I actually do remember that flag. He did the same thing or worse the entire game without a call. The refs didn’t call it until the game was essentially over, as if to say “See, we called him for celebrating. No playing favorites here.” How about the PI on Major Wright that wasn’t called early, or Timmy doing the chomp for the better part of 3 quarters without a call, or Timmy being at the opposite end of the field running around and acting like a fool with the fans DURING the end of the NCG and the UGA games last year.
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Also, these were ACC refs, so the SEC bias we’re discussing wouldn’t come into play.
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logic does not apply in this realm
there are only a few rules here:
1) Gators are not very good, just good cheaters
2) Nothing we make up may be contradicted by your “facts”,
3) We must pretend that we are still a relevant football school, eventhough Herschel left 30 years ago.
4) The gators have not beaten us almost every year for the last twenty years, the ref’s and the SEC wouldn’t let us win.
the difference between UGA and the powerhouse programs (other than titles), is those programs worry about themselves and not what one other team is doing and how much you wish you were that team.
whine, whine, whine, whine…and it appears you have no cheese…so sad.
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The logical fallacy you’re employing here is called, “red herring.”
When UGA fans argue, correctly, that UF has been the beneficiary of amazingly bad officiating, you try to change the subject by arguing against points that no one has argued, like Uf is not very good.
It’s a pathetic excuse for an argument.
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Because it’s easier to reply here than individually upthread: In the last five years, here are UF’s ranks/yardage for penalties:
2004: 103rd, 70.3 yards/game.
2005: 87th, 65.3 yards/game.
2006: 109th, 63.4 yards/game, most penalties (116) in FBS.
2007: 94th, 61.9 yards/game.
2008: 96th, 59.9 yards/game.
2009: 24th, 45.2 yards/game.
That…does not look good.
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It can’t be the officiating…that’s ridiculous.
It must be all that team chemistry that has Urban creaming his jorts.
Yeah…that’s it.
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I am certainly far from unbiased but it is time that something is done about this.
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Can’t we all just get along here boys? It doesn’t matter which team a specific call is made for/against, the latest national embarrassment happened to involve a cluster of bad calls that favored Florida. The truth is, the SEC has had the worst, the very worst officials since the mid-90s. Best football, highest stakes games, worst officials—that is a bad combination. Everyone should be squealing to Mike Slive and demand improvement because none of us know who will be the recipient of the next “phantom” call.
The BCS spot the SEC is guaranteed is worth about $18 million, but the second “discretionary” spot is worth about $12 million (I think that was the number last year. The SEC office gets 1/14 of that and it covers a lot of costs (salaries, bonuses, travel expenses, etc.) for Slive and his entourage. With that much at stake, and equal amounts for the 12 conference teams (actual teams get an additional share, or 1/7) there is plenty of incentive to “fudge” at the expense of having integrity.
Fans and member schools are right to point out the obvious errors and demand improvement. We all have too much invested, financially and emotionally, to take this lying down. But the best way to approach this is without going after a specific school but showing the inconsistency. It does seem the higher rated teams, which are the best candidates for that “bonus money” the SEC craves have been the benefactors the past few weeks, but there are hundreds of examples of incompetecy to use. Someone needs to be held accountable and this can best be addressed in a unified way. (That said, the “invented” call against AJ was the worst because it didn’t involve judgement where someone could have seen it differently like a Pass Interference type call. It simply DID NOT happen, and the SEC gave a false explanation to cover themselves that was clearly refuted by the video replays. It was simply an “intervention” by the official who made the call. The 1st down spot for UF was another “mysterious” one where the ball was misplaced, perhaps deliberately. Was it coincidence that both of these non-judgement calls went to the higher rated team which could financially benefit the league office, and ultimately the officials? I don’t know, but it does seem to work that way more often than not. This is what should be looked at, not from a “they hate us” viewpoint. Follow the money.)
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Hey all-
This question has almost nothing to do with this specific post (except that maybe they both involve referees ruining my day/life).
I’m (still) having a debate with an Auburn friend about the play during the LSU game that broke Caleb Kings jaw. He and I saw the same pictures (the ones posted here). His conclusion: the hit was not illegal. My conclusion: He is a moron, and it was. If anyone can help me out with exactly why that specific hit was illegal and should have drawn a flag. Info about spearing, feet leaving the ground, helmet to helmet contact, etc. would be greatly obliged.
I would so love to put him in his place, which, since he is an Auburn man, is naturally a few notches below the rest of us.
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Now the winner of the T.O. Award for Boner of the Week is, once again:
The SEC, “(a)fter video review, there was no evidence on the video to support the personal foul penalty called on Arkansas midway through the fourth quarter.”
Slive who did not emerge from his executive underground bunker in downtown Birmingham could not be present in person to accept the Boner Award but instead issued a press release stating:
“This officiating crew deserved it by winning Boner of the Week in Georgia v. LSU, so it was not totally unexpected that they would pull an even bigger, better and harder Boner in Arkansas v. Florida. That same crew gratefully looks forward to the privilige and opportunity to pull a rare Boner Hat Trick by doing the Georgia-Florida game on Halloween.”
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What is the name of the head referee from the UF/Arkansas game?
And where has Penn Wagers been this year?
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i used to live in the gainesville area, the SEC has produced historically good teams, and will keep doing so because the climate is warm and the football endowments are huge.
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Nice observation.
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