Do you know how expensive and time consuming that would be? The reason the SEC officials are all from the southeast is for travel considerations. It is easier (and cheaper) to live in the Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham, Jacksonville metro areas and fly/drive to the SEC campuses than it would be to do so from Boise, Cheyenne, Detroit, etc.

Also, as it stands right now in SEC rules, an official cannot be an alumni of either school on the field. What I would like to see happen is that an additional rule be put in place where an official cannot be an alumni of a big rival of either team on the field. Case in point this year - the referee in the Georgia/Tennessee game is a Vandy alum. Go back and look at the number of PI calls that could have been called against UGA and weren't. I'm not saying that the Vandy alum was the reason for that, but if he had not been there it would have taken away any appearance of impropriety.

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Posted by medtiger

Member since Sep 2003

21685 posts

Posted on 11/4/11 at 11:03 am to PJinAtl

quote:
Do you know how expensive and time consuming that would be?

Do you realize how many millions of dollars are made from a single football game? Surely the conference could afford a few hundred extra dollars to fly in officials that have no ties to the Southeast.

quote:
Also, as it stands right now in SEC rules, an official cannot be an alumni of either school on the field.

There are hundreds of thousands of fans of each school in the SEC, minus Vandy, who didn't attend the school they route for on Saturdays. Just because a referee didn't attend a certain school doesn't mean he isn't a fan of one of the teams playing. And there isn't really a way to police that, so the best way to minimize the chance of bias is to get officials from outside of the area.

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