Texas Georgia

[Clear Lake ref]

Discuss.

[zebrastripes]

No one will admit this but there’s no way replay wasn’t involved in that decision.

If you’re on the field and you’re going to talk your crewmate off a call you don’t wait until after the announcement, the bitching from the coach, and the aggrieved fans littering the field with beer cups.

[Clear Lake ref]

I am surprised they didn’t at least add in a delay.

[jra104]

First play I think of fourth quarter. Texas player was either second or third dude on the tackle and banged his knee. Told wife, I felt absolutely no compassion for his injury. She asked why, so I paused it and asked her to point out his knee pads. She did. And then asked to point to his knees. She did. Then I asked, notice an issue there?  Need more of these so these idiots start to pull their pads down!!!

[bama_stripes]

I’m curious about what the F saw that made him think it was DPI in the first place.  The receiver never turned toward the ball and slightly pushed the defender, who was in position to make a play.

[zebrastripes]

I’m curious about what the F saw that made him think it was DPI in the first place.  The receiver never turned toward the ball and slightly pushed the defender, who was in position to make a play.

There was an article from Ross Dellenger where Kirby Smarted was quoted as saying that Matt Loeffler told him the F reported the foul on the wrong team. If that is true, I interpret that to mean the F intended to report OPI and just got in a rush and got his numbers/teams mixed up. That seems plausible to me, except for the fact that if it was the case, F should have immediately went to Loeffler after the announcement of DPI to correct himself. The fact that this didn't happen makes me think the F saw how bad his call was on the video board and decided that the fallout from getting downgraded after the game would be worse than backing off his call on the field while he still could (since the fans' behavior bought the crew extra time).

[ElvisLives]

There was an article from Ross Dellenger where Kirby Smarted was quoted as saying that Matt Loeffler told him the F reported the foul on the wrong team. If that is true, I interpret that to mean the F intended to report OPI and just got in a rush and got his numbers/teams mixed up. That seems plausible to me, except for the fact that if it was the case, F should have immediately went to Loeffler after the announcement of DPI to correct himself. The fact that this didn't happen makes me think the F saw how bad his call was on the video board and decided that the fallout from getting downgraded after the game would be worse than backing off his call on the field while he still could (since the fans' behavior bought the crew extra time).

I just missed seeing this in real time, but I have seen the broadcast video of the entire event, and would agree that, based on what I saw of the 'reporting' of the foul to the R by the F, there was, indeed, some confusion about the guilty party. After observing their interaction during the reporting process, I truly believed the call was going to be OPI. I was quite surprised by the DPI. So, I am not surprised that, once the announcement was made, and the crap got thrown on the field, yes, the F may have had a chance to see the replay and realize, "Oh, wait, that was the offensive player that shoved off, not the defensive player. In that case, the shove off didn't affect the defender's ability to intercept the ball - let's pick this flag up."
I have no facts to support this conclusion, and I am only speculating, having been in similar situations in the past, and made a similar mistake once (although I recognized my error almost immediately, and quickly corrected it before it became a major problem). So, I could be WAYYYYYY off base. We may never know what really happened. But, I think that is a plausible explanation.

[dammitbobby]

I just missed seeing this in real time, but I have seen the broadcast video of the entire event, and would agree that, based on what I saw of the 'reporting' of the foul to the R by the F, there was, indeed, some confusion about the guilty party. After observing their interaction during the reporting process, I truly believed the call was going to be OPI. I was quite surprised by the DPI. So, I am not surprised that, once the announcement was made, and the crap got thrown on the field, yes, the F may have had a chance to see the replay and realize, "Oh, wait, that was the offensive player that shoved off, not the defensive player. In that case, the shove off didn't affect the defender's ability to intercept the ball - let's pick this flag up."
I have no facts to support this conclusion, and I am only speculating, having been in similar situations in the past, and made a similar mistake once (although I recognized my error almost immediately, and quickly corrected it before it became a major problem). So, I could be WAYYYYYY off base. We may never know what really happened. But, I think that is a plausible explanation.

But even if he thought it was OPI, saw the replay, and decided it was inconsequential, is it better to change it to OPI, knowing it would be declined and B still keeps the ball, or waive it off altogether? Because I'd argue that it is far better to still have a flag down - and some credibility - than saying 'uhh, disregard, we changed our minds' - which is exactly what it looked like.

I'm sure I'm a minority on this but I think they should have left it as called.  Yes, of course we want to get the call right... but the perception that this sequence of events gave officiating, set us back significantly in  terms of public perception, and validated to millions of fans that throwing things on the field MAY give you a chance at having a call reversed or overturned, so why not, go ahead. Not a single person watching that - minus us officials - believe that there wasn't some kind of outside influence that prompted the change. You want to think games are rigged, officials are incompetent, or susceptible to influence?  Look no further, this is the smoking gun. This will be pointed to for years as why officials shouldn't be respected and why all officials' integrity is suspect.

I think the crew would have been far better served - and officiating altogether - had they stuck with the call, admitted they made an error afterwards, (and the SEC could have helped with this in their statement, just admit that officials are human and sometimes make mistakes) and not trashed the credibility of officials everywhere.

[TxBJ]

Although we might never know, it is hard for me to believe that the replay command center wasn’t in their ear. I don’t mean that from a conspiracy point of view, but there is communication throughout the game on little things and I would expect also on this big thing.

[ElvisLives]

Although we might never know, it is hard for me to believe that the replay command center wasn’t in their ear. I don’t mean that from a conspiracy point of view, but there is communication throughout the game on little things and I would expect also on this big thing.

I have avoided commenting on that very thing, because of how scary that is, if that is happening. I just don’t want to think such a thing might be happening. But, I can’t discount the possibility. Scary.

[dammitbobby]

Shaw referenced reviewing  Basic Officiating Guidelines for Changing Calls in the CCA manual on his weekly video, but for a different play... He discussed the 9-1-3 targeting play in TX/GA but no comment/discussion on the big one.