Collusion is a bridge too far for me, mostly because I don’t believe the parties involved are smart enough to hide a conspiracy that significant, but the fact remains that the SEC botched a ruling and doesn’t seem to interested in fixing the situation. Which calls the legitimacy of its decision-making processes into question. — Billy Gomila, And The Valley Shook
Billy’s a great guy and all (thanks for that Lula recommendation!) and I get why LSU folks are hot under the collar about the targeting call, but ultimately, I can’t muster up much of a sense of outrage against the SEC office over it, mainly because my mind keeps wandering back to this classic:
It was a bullshit call — followed up by a similar bullshit call a couple of weeks later from the same bunch that actually led to a weakass disciplinary measure from the league — yet Marc Curles still calls SEC games today. I didn’t see Miles turn the penalty down out of a sense of correcting a wrong, nor did I hear anyone from LSU petition the SEC office to do anything about it afterwards.
Funny how that works sometimes.
Get The Picture 
SEC officiating … It Just Sucks More
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Yep. How do you miss Aaron Murray getting killed in ‘10 Auburn game and ‘12 SECC and then toss Ray Drew for targeting at Vandy a few years ago. Terrible.
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I was at that game. One of the biggest chickenshit calls ever made. In a league with the best football and worst refs. It just means more..
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The idea of the refs purposely suspending Devin White for the 1st half against Bama in order to give them an edge is ridiculous. They will cheat for Bama so bad during that game that it makes no difference who gets off the bus for LSU anyway. SMH.
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Bingo. We laugh at inept officiating until it bites our own team in the ass, and then it’s SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!
As for this instance, it was ticky tack, but by the letter of the law it wasn’t wrong. And it’s an NCAA rule. The SEC can’t waive it off.
LSU fans are great people, but they pick odd hills to die on sometimes. Endless complainers.
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AJ got a flag while Tebow could go nuts for 5 minutes because of 1 yard gain for a first down. There’s a word for it and it ain’t “bullshit.”
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Shouldn’t it be considered that while Georgia has been repeatedly screwed by what is at best piss poor officiating and at worst, cheating or biased (same thing to me) officials..something strong should have been done about it?
Where the hell is the AD? Wouldn’t it be his job to get with other ADs from other schools that have been screwed…maybe put together a video montage of the horrible calls with audio descriptions of what that (those) calls did to a team, their season etc? Demand accountability? Demand a rule where any SEC coach can ban a crew or an official from doing their games for two years? Outsource the officiating to a private company that doesn’t exist yet but could certainly be established in short order?
There are fixes but someone has to get off of their ass and get to work to accomplish them.
It’s to the point where we are almost expected to accept that there is bias and accept it as part of the game. Bullshit.
The players should determine who wins..not the refs. Just imagine. That would make UGA National Champs..(and I know those weren’t SEC officials..still..)
The ADs should ban together and get it fixed. They have “juice” but maybe they’re just complacent or don’t GAS enough to address this.
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Years ago the SEC had a rule in men’s basketball that a head coach could veto a particular referee from working his team’s games. If I recall correctly the league changed that rule in the early 1970s. There was a guy we would not allow to ref our games. After the rule change we would get that ref at times, and it would not be good for us.
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If we were serious about the poor officiating, Morehead and McGarity could go visit with $ankey and make it clear that the main sports draw in the media capital in the South would be willing to entertain an offer from the ACC if it’s not fixed. I imagine that would get Greg $, $teve $, and their suits in Birmingham to fix it.
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ACC? The same conference that picked up Penn Wagers 5 minutes after the SEC finally canned him?
something, something, frying pan, fire, something
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I imagine if we went to the ACC, there would be no way Wagers gets close to a Georgia game.
I’m not advocating for this, but that would be better than making a big PR deal about it like LSU is doing.
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Things have changed, but a few years ago amidst the rampant SEC West cheating (and dominance, admittedly), I pondered a defection of all the East teams who have a permanent ACC rival anyway. FL, GA, SC, KY. Not sure what UT would have done.
You could have a nifty 12 team conference if you broke up the ACC and SEC East:
(working up from the south)
1. Miami
2. FSU
3. UF
4. UGA
5. GT.
6. USCjr
7. Clemson
8. Tennessee
9. NC State
10. Kentucky
11. Louisville
12. Va Tech
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I will not give the refs name; but know for a fact that this particular ref cannot stand UGA. His daughter went to high school with my son. They were friends and she confided to him that her dad hated Georgia. Everytime the guy calls a game, I wait for it. And sure enough, before the game is over – he’ll zing us every time and it’s always in an area where you can call a penalty pretty much on every play if you want to. If you think all referees keep their bias at home – you are kidding yourself.
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True story: It was 1987 (or 1988), LSU at UGA. Tommy Hodson & Wendell Davis were stars on that LSU team. UGA had the lead late in Q4. LSU gets the ball and has to score a TD (I think) to win. There was one (maybe two) VERY questionable calls that kept the LSU drive alive, LSU goes on to score and win.
After the game, me and my buds are walking down east campus drive going back to the ATO house. The road is packed full of people leaving the stadium. And here comes a white van with police escort, it’s carrying the refs. It passes within arms length of us, going very slow through the crowd. So we look at this ref sitting closest to the window and he looks back at us. He sees the pain on our faces and proceeds to mouth the words “Fuck You”. I swear before God & Country that it happened and was unprovoked i.e. we didn’t flip him off or do anything.
I’ll never forget, it was gut punch after losing a tough competitive game. I’ve never really trusted officials since then. Yes, they’re human and can make mistakes (forgivable), but they can also have biases and agendas.
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Agree. Yes to having a national pool of officials that work games away from their home area, and with zero affiliation to any school they are involved with. Also would standardize the enforcement of penalties. These should be well paid, full time officials; the money exists. Ridiculous to have so many games be this controversial. I don’t care for the NFL, and they miss some calls, but it is light years ahead of the college officiating, even if the product sucks.
ADs should pool their most mind numbing list of silly/stupid calls and submit them as a total case of why the above should be done. Schools individually submitting calls loses any sense of leverage, and sounds like whining. This is a real problem and should be addressed. Let each school submit their “Top 10” of how bad things are.
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Shit, LSU had a guy throw a punch with no penalty & mugged Mecole on an easy TD in the game 2 weeks ago. Cry me a river.
Also, come back & talk to me when inept officiating costs you a NC & then maybe we can talk.
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Marc Curles, a GTU Guy, has no business reffing SEC games and never should be on the field during a UGA game for sure. He’s just a smarter, cleaned up version of Penn Wagers.
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This. The fact that Marc Curles is calling anything higher than middle school football in his hometown is a travesty. The guy is a terrible official, and has been for years.
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Can’t help but suspect the motivations of a man who willingly signs up to be a college football official. I know it’s part time work with high visibility but NOBODY likes them and EVERYONE wants you to take a shot to the crotch at least once a series. These folks either think way too highly of themselves or way too little but certainly not a balanced individual.
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Had forgotten about this… Never the ‘fix was in’ type; but in this case, I thought he was paid to insure a LSU victory – not by the league, but someone else. This smelled from high heaven…
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Are there any Refs in the SEC that have UGA ties? Seems there are a lot with Bama and GT ties.
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Hard to find them with over two decades of GT, and Bama/TN guys doing the hiring, evaluating, and assigning SEC officials. This has been neglected for a long time, and we have more scars than others. There is incompetence, and then there is just cheating. Every school doesn’t see it as often as we do, one of the problems of having 7-8 “rivals”.
I have no explanation at all about the 2nd half of our game against Bama in January, there were 2-3 calls that are usually never, ever missed by anyone, even SEC officials (offsides, blatant face-mask, etc.); we aren’t talking pass interference type judgement calls. That was just weird. Sure, we should have won anyway, but we did win if any of these are enforced as they would be 99+% of the time. No reason for Big 14 guys to have a reason, but these aren’t really debatable.
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A ref may be making a call or missing a call to benefit a team that isn’t even on the field. It could even be to benefit a team from another conference or part of the country.
What the clowns in the UGA/UA National Championship games were up to, I just can’t figure out..but they didn’t even bother with the Vaseline.
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Rogers Redding, the Southeastern Conference coordinator of football officials, said Monday that Georgia receiver A.J. Green was penalized incorrectly late in Saturday’s game against Louisiana State for excessive celebration.
Green caught a 16-yard touchdown pass with just over a minute to play to put the Bulldogs ahead. But after the infraction, Georgia was penalized 15 yards on the ensuing kickoff. L.S.U. got the ball in good field position and scored the winning touchdown with 46 seconds to play.
L.S.U.’s 20-13 victory kept the Tigers unbeaten and ranked No. 4 in the Associated Press poll headed into Saturday’s game with No. 1 Florida.
Redding said the back judge made the call and wrote in a postgame report that Green called attention to himself after his touchdown with a gesture toward the crowd, which is deemed excessive celebration and a penalty. The back judge listed on the official scoring summary of game was Michael Watson.
Redding said the SEC reviewed the television video of the game and did not see Green make a gesture that was excessive celebration. Redding said Green seemed to be pushed out of the pile of Georgia players celebrating and was not calling attention to himself.
“We feel like the call should not have been made,” Redding said in a telephone interview Monday. “The call does not support the call that was made on the field. https://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/officials-apologize-for-georgia-penalty/
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That travisity ran through my mind durning the game. Very painful to see the demonstrations by today’s players that go unchallenged.
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Two things:
1.) AJ Green got way more than his fair share of screw jobs during his time in Athens and from all angles (NCAA, SEC, and even his own institution). Good lord.
2.) I’ll just assume Devin White missed the first half of the Florida game because otherwise the Tigers surely would have won going away. At least that’s been my understanding from the litany of saber rattling and teeth gnashing I’ve had to wade through this week.
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The NFL rates the refs on each play. There are three tiers for rating performance.Those falling into the third tier for an extended period are likely to be replaced. They have already dismissed one this year.
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