The Southeastern Conference Offices in Birmingham, Alabama exist primarily to ensure the safety, fairness and integrity of the uniquely American game known as college football among its twelve member institutions. Unfortunately, money has obviously corrupted their existence, just as it has so many other American institutions, like Congress, the stock market, and even the medical and legal professions. The Southeastern Conference is sadly American greed’s latest victim, evidenced by the ongoing conspiracy to name and play favorites through its compromised officials toward creating the most lucrative matchup in the SEC Championship Game.

In this piece for Tigerdroppings.com, the Internet’s best place to find continuous and updated breaking news and opinions on all things SEC, we’ll weigh considerably the many recent, documented transgressions of SEC football officials, the ongoing problem of obviously biased refereeing, and the insidious proposition that the SEC home offices are self-serving, corrupted and biased. This isn’t the crazy aunt in the basement. This isn’t the growing trade deficit. This is about the future of a religion in the Deep South—Southeastern Conference Football.

A History Lesson
Prior to the formation of the SEC’s predecessors, the Southern Conference and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association, just after the Civil War, college football was a game rampant with corruption—much like it apparently is today. Those early upheavals and controversies spurred the creation of organizing conferences, and ultimately, another overriding bureaucracy known as the NCAA, which is effectively a cartel.

In those early days of college football, when the NFL was a concept as foreign as the automobile, the dirty money went to the best players—ringers and tramp athletes who were paid to play for two and sometimes three schools during a season—because they could. In those times, there were no conferences—only games and teams controlled by the upperclassmen, and of course, overzealous alumni. We have apparently come full circle. The only difference is that the unscrupulous ones are no longer the sanctioned. Frighteningly, they are the ones that sanction, leaving everyone that cares about the SEC feeling as helpless as they are disgusted with the current nadir of conference officiating.

The 2009 Conspiracy: Get Alabama and Florida in the SEC Championship Game
Everyone has heard the conspiracy theories. The most prominent being bandied about barber and coffee shops across the South has been that Mike Slime and the SEC Gestapo were doing all they could through scheduling and of course, officiating, to make it happen. The question is: Is this a believable theory? Moreover, why would the conference office want such a thing? What could their misguided reasons be?

The Reasons
The conference office is in Birmingham, Alabama. Is it fair to assume that there could be an embedded bias stemming from geography? It is certainly is plausible. There has been an abounding rumor through the years that a majority of SEC referees are from the State of Alabama and are closet Bama fans. I cannot refute or corroborate this assertion. However, maybe the conference office can. I am sure their employee records regarding officials are as transparent as Congress and any other local or state government is regarding information requests, right?

An SEC Championship Game matchup between Alabama and Florida would achieve two things: 1) It would ensure the most lucrative pairing for the contest with two undefeated teams. Merchandising, ticket sales and TV ratings would be their highest with this type of fabled contest. 2) The winner of the SECCG is a lock for the national championship game, given it will be undefeated, and the SEC Champion has won three of the last four crystal balls, meaning the conference office and its many highly-paid overseers and sycophants have become addicted to this enhanced revenue stream.

The LSU-Bama Game
I want to preface my comments about the many bad officiating calls in this game by saying that I believe the better team on the field won. Alabama’s football team and its coaches have nothing to do with conference politics—as far as I know. My point is that Alabama played a great game. The stats prove it. Moreover, Mark Ingram became the Heisman leader in the contest—which would of course be a Bama first.

The Alabama game was a travesty of officiating—a cheap, crude impersonation of what it is supposed to be—impartial. Throughout the game the refs made call after call that appeared to favor Alabama, and go against LSU. This obvious bias reached its zenith with the fourth quarter instant replay booth call failing to overturn a poorly-made field call by an official.

The big eye does not lie. Lately two kids with a camera exposed the corruption of ACORN. Game footage enlarged and replayed revealed Brandon Spikes’ eye-gouging incident. Film allows one to see what really is, what really happened.

The instant replay from the LSU-Bama game Saturday clearly and repeatedly showed Patrick Peterson’s feet—both of them—touching the playing field—after he caught the ball, and before he stepped out of bounds. Furthermore, his last foot created an evidential divot in the field of play. CBS commentator Gary Danielson stated as much, and that the play was an obvious interception. The shill in the booth obviously thought otherwise. Maybe Slime will reprimand or fine him. Then again, maybe he’ll take him to dinner and let him use the office condo in sunny Destin. Who knows?

Last week the media had a field day attacking the character and integrity of Urban Meyer. His slap on the wrist of Brandon Spikes was admittedly bad. However, the $30,000 fine he received from the SEC for criticizing the calls of officials only added insult to injury. Urban had a terrible media week. Nevertheless, he could find great solace this week in knowing that his criticism of Southeastern Conference officials had tremendous merit. The fine was money well spent. One can only wonder what the league office will do with the cash. Perhaps eye exams for league officials?

The SEC will surely stand by its replay booth official. It will tell us that what we saw, we really did not see. The camera, not the official, lied; and the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy all concurred. Who are we to disagree as our most favored Deep Southern pastime approaches the credibility of professional boxing under Don King.

*Chris Warner holds two degrees from LSU and a doctorate from the University of New Orleans. He is the author and publisher of thirteen books, including “A Tailgater’s Guide to SEC Football Volume III” and “HealthSouth: The Wagon to Disaster,” the untold story of HealthSouth Corporation, with Aaron Beam. Both books are available at Booksamillion.com.