Worst Officiating Ever

[utee94]

I preferred the good ol days when the offense had to be set for a full count and the defense could do whatever the heck they wanted to try to make them flinch

I'll definitely agree with you there.  I mean... the offense KNOWS the snap count.  Not sure why they need any NEW protections other than that.  It worked for the first hundred years or so...

[DevilFroggy]

ASU's game against Stanford last week was one of the worst ones in recent memory. 

We got jobbed at home vs LSU in 2005, that was NOT a touchdown catch by Early Doucet with 1:14 left in the game, dammit. 

[DevilFroggy]

And while ASU did benefit from a ref blunder (nothing intentional, the refs were just dumb) at the end of their home game vs Wisconsin in 2013 I don't feel bad about it. Not only do I feel like ASU was the better team (if that game is played 10 times ASU wins 7-8 of them) but in the first half the refs missed an obvious hold by one of their olineman while their QB was in the endzone (should be a safety) but the refs missed another play where the badger QB's knee was down before he pitched the ball off to an RB for some positive yards when it should have been a sack. 

[Kris60]

1992 vs. Syracuse.  WVU is up 17-13 with about 2 minutes left and SU has the ball.  QB Marvin Graves is belted out of bounds on a scramble.  He thinks it’s a dirty hit (it wasn’t) so he gets up and rifles the ball into the back of the head of DB Tommy Orr.  Orr turns around and pushes him and then is basically enveloped by the entire Orange sideline.

A mini brawl erupts and after a minute or so everyone is separated as the refs discuss what to do.  After all the discussion the ref gets on the mic and announces three WVU starters in the secondary have been ejected along with a 3rd string tackle from Syracuse.  The kid from SU was so obscure he wasn’t listed on the roster the WVU radio crew had received from the school.  Graves, the guy who started it all in the first place, gets nothing.

Graves takes advantage of a depleted secondary and leads the Orange on a 2 minute drive that culminates in a touchdown.  SU wins 20-17.  To this day Marvin Graves is despised in the state of WV.

[Drew4UTk]

ECU @ Bama, somewhere in the mid nineties... Bama calls a t/o to stop the clock at the end of the game after their runner being tackled in bounds, and when ECU was ahead, and... the refs grant it... problem: they'd already used all three for the half.  solution: the refs gave them another anyway.  They split the uprights and won the game.  Steve Logan, then HC of ECU said after the game "I will NEVER allow a game scheduled in the SEC regular season again".   I've seen some blown calls before, and just remark that (prior to instant replay) refs are just human too- but this one was flat out nasty and literally stole a game from a team that had worked their asses off the entire game to earn that win.... 

[FearlessF]

And while ASU did benefit from a ref blunder (nothing intentional, the refs were just dumb) at the end of their home game vs Wisconsin in 2013 I don't feel bad about it. 

hah, nobody ever feels bad about being on the "lucky" end of a blown call
hopefully, these equal out in the football universe over time

[Kris60]

I have a new nominee.  The crew of WVU-Texas authored a complete shit show yesterday.  One of the worst officiated games I’ve seen in quite a while.

[utee94]

It was shocking bad, no doubt.

Congrats on the win Kris, despite the numerous Texas losses to your team and the awkward geography/timezone/distance stuff, I've been really happy with the addition of WVU to the B12.  Best of luck from here on out, and, with a little luck, perhaps Texas will get the chance at a rematch in the completely redundant and unnecessary B12 CCG.

[MikeDeTiger]

What's sad is how much us SEC guys complain about the officiating, and rightfully so.....yet they're still better than the Big 12 and PAC refs.  

Honestly, I'm not sure that overall the SEC crews aren't perhaps the best (definitely the fastest) refs.  

And that's really, really sad.  

Because they suck.  

[CharleyHorse46]

You know... sometimes spots are even worse than calls.  A little fudge here or there can sure mess up a game.  And I'm not even talking about the Texas-wvu game.  I'm talking about all games in general.  

But the nice thing about the Texas-wvu game was that the officiating was thoroughly bad.  Misery loves company and when the refs are hosing you it always provides great solace to see them hosing your opponent too.

Texas and wvu both got screwed.  And even though Texas lost, the Horns had hunnert woulda coulda shouldas that might've changed everything.

Hard to complain in light of those factors.

[CousinFreddie]

Honestly, I'm not sure that overall the SEC crews aren't perhaps the best (definitely the fastest) refs. 

Change the first s to a t, and they would become "definitely the fattest refs."
Seriously though, is there an objective measure for refs?  In this age of video replay, I think they're beginning to get a handle on which baseball umpires are more (and less) accurate at calling balls and strikes.  But in football, hmmm, seems harder to get an objective measure on whether the knee hit the turf before the ball crossed the plane, given that it would actually be a review of the review, nowadays, kind of like a refereeing infinite mirror, of sorts. 

How do we determine which conference has the best (and worst) refs?  We can give anecdotal examples of times when our team got ripped off in a OOC game (and for OU, definitely it was SWC and Pac refs that seemed the worst, but still the sample size is not large even if at times egregious).  But systematically, who has analyzed the refs?  And, who'll stop the rain?  And, who knows where the time goes?

[MikeDeTiger]

I was thinking more in terms of bad penalties called, or missing penalties that should've been called.  Not so much in terms of placing the ball correctly or where/when a guy's knee was down.  

The SEC has a long and storied history of flat out botches.  And they're still probably not worth complaining about as much as what I see sometimes in the PAC and the B12.  

[Mr Tulip]

You know... sometimes spots are even worse than calls.  A little fudge here or there can sure mess up a game.  And I'm not even talking about the Texas-wvu game.  I'm talking about all games in general.  

But the nice thing about the Texas-wvu game was that the officiating was thoroughly bad.  Misery loves company and when the refs are hosing you it always provides great solace to see them hosing your opponent too.

Texas and wvu both got screwed.  And even though Texas lost, the Horns had hunnert woulda coulda shouldas that might've changed everything.

Hard to complain in light of those factors.

Yeah. The statistician in me knows that conspiracy theories are bunk, the mistakes in a sufficiently large sample even out, and the proximal mistake usually gets unfairly blamed.
A lot of what happened in the Texas/WVU game was appallingly bad. It had an effect on the game.
However, that doesn't mean you're obligated to overthrow wide open TEs. It doesn't force you to run a lengthy toss sweep on 2nd and goal from the 1/2 yard line. It shouldn't confuse your DE and have him repeatedly crash inside while leaving the ball carrier sprinting past him.
When you play perfectly and lose when the officiating hoses you, then you can complain.
Actually, I complain constantly anyway.

[Drew4UTk]

in that spirit, @Mr Tulip , i feel much the same about OT games... if one team doesn't decisively defeat another they aren't that much better... and even then it's a toss up if the delta is because of one bad match up on the field (i.e. a specific receiver can't be covered w/o opening up other receivers, or a specific DL can't be contained by the OL w/o opening up threats elsewhere)... 

calls ought not be a factor in who wins or loses if one team is truly better than the other, pretty much period.... unless you're alabama and got an additional t/o at the end of regulation and inside field goal range. shizen like that, now... that is heartbreaking.