Instead, I'd rather talk about a couple of atrocious calls I witnessed during yesterday's college football action. The first such call happened during the Florida State vs Boston College game and came early in the 4th quarter.
BC had jumped out to a surprising 21-3 lead in the first half, but Florida State had chipped away at this lead, getting back to 21-13 at the start of the 4th quarter. BC drove out to their own 37 yard line, where they faced 3rd and 1.
This snapshot gives you a good idea of just how far they have to go to get the first down at the start of the play (the yellow line signifying the first down).
BC (wisely, given the distance needed) calls for a QB sneak to try and get the first down. Their QB takes the snap, the line gets good push, and he pushes his way forward to about half a yard beyond the first down marker. But, don't take my word for it, see for yourself. I took the liberty of circling BC QB Dave Shinskie.
Then, the defense does what defenses always do in this situation: they stop his momentum and then push him backwards as far as they can, hoping to influence the official spot of the ball. Thanks to the general pile up of bodies, the FSU defense manages to shove Dave Shinskie back behind the first down marker, as seen below (again, Shinskie is circled).
Now comes the interesting part. One of the linesman on the officiating crew runs in at the spot where Shinskie's forward progress was stopped. By rule, this is where the ball should be spotted. Notice how the circled linesman runs in ahead of the yellow first down line.
Now, it's true that the yellow line isn't official (it's put there by ABC, who's broadcasting the game) but at this stage of the yellow line's development, you will never see a ball spotted entirely past the yellow line that is not actually a first down.
Okay, so 1 linesman believes the ball shouls be spotted ahead of the first down marker. Maybe the other linesman had a better view, and maybe he has money on FSU, and he believes the ball should be spotted behind the marker.
Hmmm, this doesn't seem to be the case. The circled linesman in the image above clearly believes Shinskie reached a good half yard further than the first down marker (as displayed by the much cruder but incredibly accurate yellow line). However, linesman #1 (not circled in this image) has moved about a yard backwards for seemingly no reason at all.
The official marking the spot should NEVER move off of that spot, even if it's to get the ball. There are 7 officials on the field, and this is one of the reasons why. Another official should hand the linesman the ball so that his spot can be as accurate as possible. Did he think his buddy was going to keep track of the spot while he got the ball from the pile? Did he magically change his mind? We'll never know. What we do know, is that linesman #1 influenced linesman #2's opinion of the proper spot, as seen below.
Now both linesmen are setup behind the first down marker as something caused them to change their minds regarding the spot. After many hours of consideration, I have decided that either they were sneakily abducted briefly by aliens on their way in from the sidelines, or Bobby Bowden broke down into a blubbering mess at some point and begged the officials for help getting back in the game. Whatever it was, the end result was the terrible spot seen below.
In case all of this evidence isn't enough for you, let me add the following:
- The spot was so bad, Matt Millen immediately noticed it and called out the officials for a bad job. This is the same Matt Millen who spent the last 6 years demonstraitng who little he knew about successful football (and carving the heart out of the city of Detroit, but that's another matter), and he saw it right away.
- Every college football play is reviewed by a separate replay official. They have the option to signal down to the referee on the field to stop play and give the replay official more time to review the play and render a decision. The replay official (wisely) sent this signal down to ask for more time. Inexplicably, the replay official then decided there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the spot. I have an image of poor resolution screen-grabbed from a standard definition replay of the game that clearly shows the call was blatantly wrong. The replay official had a high definition video of the same thing, and he gutlessly shrunk from his obligation to right the on-field wrong.
This was a total failure by both linesmen and the replay official, all 3 of whom should be suspended for at least the next game for gross incompetence. I very much doubt this will happen, so God help whatever ACC team draws this crew next week.
The real issue is that this wasn't a pass interference call gone bad. This wasn't a holding call that later didn't hold up to video scrutiny. At least those are jugdment calls, and with jugdment calls there will be some variation from official to official. This was a simple spot of the ball call where both linesmen showed the correct initial instincts, then inexplicably went away from those instincts. The mistake was compounded when the replay official, with plenty of evidence to the contrary, upheld the initial call. It's a call that should never have been allowed to stand, but stood.
Luckily for BC (and this officiating crew), even after FSU tied the game at 21 on their ensuing possession, BC managed to win the game 28-21. I have a feeling the next team to be wronged by this crew won't be so lucky.
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