It probably won’t be a big surprise to anyone that I’m not particularly impressed with the Marc Curles mea culpa posted at ESPN.com. And it’s not because he fails to apologize for the celebration call against A.J. Green. It’s because he talks as if the call against Malcolm Sheppard came in a complete vacuum.
… Where I made the mistake is I didn’t see the whole thing. I didn’t see how it developed. I saw out of the corner of my eye what I thought was a foul. I can’t think something is a foul. I got to know it is. And that was my mistake. And I know better than that. What makes me mad at myself is that I know better than to call something if I didn’t see the whole thing…
He knows better than that. Really. There was a public acknowledgement by the conference that the Green call wasn’t warranted. So shouldn’t Curles have already been in the proper frame of mind before stepping on the field at the Swamp last weekend? And why should we have any confidence that he’s learned his lesson now?
Get The Picture 
Georgia Tech grad, by the way.
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Being a Tech Grad. Is bad enough…the bigger issue is he was a business major at Tech. Majoring in business at Tech. is like majoring in home economics at Georgia….it’s the major for football players that can’t actually do college level work.
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Why should any of these officials be in the proper frame of mind? The suspension would never have happened if pressure from the mainstream media and blogosphere had not taken up the cause.
SEC refs have been f*cking up the game for years now. Finally, some accountability…but reluctantly so. My fear is they’ll go to the other extreme and not call the truly blatant infractions (like Brandon Spikes dry humping Knowshon. Wait…that wasn’t celebration. My bad. That was fornication.)
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Yep, that was fornication. If your definition of fornication is getting absolutely decleated and then woofed at. Oh wait, that was a poor choice of words–I’m sure Knowshon was doing the woofing, urrrrrr, barking, urrrrr, whining. Brandon was just, uhh, *conversing* with him.
AG
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“And why should we have any confidence that he’s learned his lesson now?”
We can’t because Slive outsources all SEC officiating crew members to this tough guy for indoctrination at call centers in Mumbai before any of them are allowed to officiate SEC games…
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So, the SEC gives its referees minimal instruction, and then drops the ax after they, as expected, screw up a bunch of times?
I like the SEC’s style, baby.
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We have had this problem since all our good refs bolted for the ACC several years ago. I don’t know why but the ACC made an effort to improve officiating and the result was to deteriorate the officiating in the SEC. We need to pay our refs better so we can keep the top quality ones or we will soon have only the guys that no other conference will want. It is a shame that the best football conference in the country can’t attract the best referees in the country.
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GREAT point. We should make a statement with this. Pay a premium for officials and let them know that to whom much is given, much is required. These SEC schools rolling in money and having crappy refs, its like living on 5th Avenue and hiring some crack addict to man the lobby.
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Yo! Wez guts dis covahed. Don’t need no funny bizness from the league, nowhatimean? Jus gets our crew back on dat field and place yo bets. We’ll handle da payola, capishe?
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Let’s just go to Jax and kick their butts like in 2007….without the celebration penalties so they don’t have anything to gripe about.
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Guess we’ll be seeing Penn Wagers and Company in Jacksonville this Halloween. Oh, the horror!
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Honestly, Steve Shaw’s crew is the only one that I have any confidence in getting a fair deal with.
This guy’s excuse is pitiful and his suspension is long overdue.
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I agree that Steve Shaw is the best SEC official out there today. His crew called the UGA-Arkansas and UGA-UT games this season and both games were fairly called. I really hope his crew gets the UGA-UF game because Penn Wagers called the game last year and his crew is worse than Curles’ crew. I still can’t get over his explanation on how, even after a replay clearly showed that Florida did not reach the first down marker, that the result of a play last year on third down was a first down. Even Richt gave him lip service after that bs call. Or his jawing on Brian Mimbs in the 07 Auburn game. That guy is a disgrace to college football and officiating in general.
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One of the ESPN talking heads said the SEC should have not suspended the entire crew, just the individual refs. Well as far as I’m concerned until the refs at the play start to grow a pair and tell the ref 35 yards off the play that throws the late flag that it was a bad call and the flag gets picked up they can all rot in heck.
On the replay from the Ark/UF game that slug of an Umpire that can’t run and can’t bend over is seen runwalking his way to the play right past the offending parties he even turns his head to watch them. The ref who admittedly had not seen the entire action throws the flag and the Slug Umpire does nothing to help his Head Ref out of a suspension call.
On the replay from the LSU/UGA game there are two officials shown in the endzone immediately after the play. As far as I know only one was offended, maybe next time the other official will say man you blew it on that one and the ref will wave it off.
Lets all remember that the Umpire on the infamous Jasper Shanks nonfumble at Yeck was in perfect position to over rule the guy that made the call but he didn’t even bring it up. If they are so stupid or shy that they don’t want to risk hurting a fellow Refs feelings then they all get what they deserve.
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