re: Interesting article on NCAA Refs

There is way to much video evidence of blown calls if that's what you want to call it, I don't. It's all over YouTube. Ask Ole Miss or Arkansas. I believe they call it Bama Privilege.

My fave non-call from the 2014 game is still when Jennings had his face mask ripped off with no call. LOL

That first down would have come at a key moment of the game too.

The OP will want to know now how many times in CFB history has someone had their facemask ripped off without a call. LOL

Yeah, the ripping off of Jennings' facemask was a horrible non-call by the officials. That game was one of the most poorly officiated games I've seen in my entire life, college and pro. The deck was definitely stacked against LSU in that game. The refs allowed Alabama to get away with blatant PI on more than one occasion. Imo, it comes close to rivaling the 2006 Auburn game for the biggest screwing by the officials. I remember Jalen Collins having a great game containing Amari Cooper. He was outstanding defending him.

quote:

---

The OP will want to know now how many times in CFB history has someone had their facemask ripped off without a call. LOL

---

Yes it would be horrible to ask someone to do real research and prove their claim. What a CRAZY idea.

The fact that there's a 12 page thread where most posters sincerely believe referees blatantly make/miss calls for Bama is pretty sad. There's not a chance in hell that all of these SEC refs, that have no rooting interest in these games, are all keeping quiet about this big double secret conspiracy. Most, if not all, have very well paying full time jobs, and would be risking their entire livelihood so Bama could win another championship...? Lol ok.

That fact that there's a 12 page thread is testament to a troll of epic proportions who has LSU as his team on his profile, but seems to LOVE himself some AlaBama football and SEC officiating.

Well done, TigerTracker, well done.
I'll vote for you in the Droppies.

quote:

---

It's an almost impossible thing to prove

---

It's really not. I actually told you step by step how one would prove it.

quote:

---

How do you really know that the officials didn't do that to deliberately help Alabama?

---

How do you know they did? You don't. You're making my point here. I won't accuse teams of cheating without knowing for sure, or having some pretty strong evidence (which no one has put together) to indicate it should be examined further.

quote:

---

You think the officials responsible for missing that are going to be fired?

---

No just like the ones who missed the lsu holding calls wont be fired. Also there have been different commissioners over the years. Wouldn't they all have to be in on it too? Does it go that far up in your theory?

Meh, the article really doesn't say a whole lot. The metric they used was "protected teams" "flagship teams" and "protected flagship teams" (with, I'm assuming, everyone else placed in some sort of "unprotected team" group) which is flawed in my opinion.

If the refs do have a bias for a specific team it will be lost in a comparison like this because you're grouping teams in this manner. Even if you narrow it down to conference and still use those group labels its not specific enough.

Why? Because it's testing to see if flagship teams, protected teams, and protected flagship teams always get the benefit and that isn't what's being claimed. If there is an effort made to push Bama to the SEC championship/playoffs, LSU and AU might get a few more calls against them to try and help push them to a loss, even though they were labeled flagship teams and the teams they were playing against were unprotected teams. Those calls, both the inflated calls against LSU or AU, and the reduced calls to the inferior teams, would help balance out the bias for Bama when you look at the conference as a whole.

In short, looking at the conference as a whole and picking flagship teams/protected teams muddies the water. The claim isn't that all flagship teams and protected teams get the benefit, the claim is that certain flagship/protected teams get the benefit. You need to break this down by team, not conference.

Moreover, as others have already discussed, this only concerns penalties. Whether a play is or is not a fumble, a catch, and interception, a first down, a touch down, etc. also play a huge role in games.

It also ignores how impact one penalty can be. Even if there's only one bad call in one or two of the tougher games for a specific team, it wouldn't register much statistically but could drastically change a ball game. I can think of several that have gone against LSU in Bama games in the last 5 years that drastically changed a drive.

I'm not saying there is bias for Bama, but if its not there's certainly a few coincidences when it comes to how these games are called.

You can point to LSU's mistakes with play calling, etc. But giving a team a free TD in a game where both teams scores combined comes out to 10 points is massive. Pointing to LSU's mistakes when the score at 15:00 in the first quarter (before kick off) is 7-0 is missing the point.

quote:

---

See my response on this to several others who have brought this up:

---

I don't see anything in there that argues how 1.) one bad call or missed call cannot drastically change a football game or 2.) how the article you linked in your OP covered these statically insignificant instances that do have a large impact.

My critique was that the article you linked doesn't say what you think it says, I wasn't claiming the contrary (that I know for sure that the refs have bias in favor of Bama).

quote:

---

Or when AJ Green got an inexplicable excessive celebration call giving lsu great field position to go score and win? That wouldn't be considered a game changing call for LSU?

---

It would be, and that would be included in a case if you were trying to show that in 2009 the refs has bias towards LSU. Keep in mind, when that call was made Saban had zero titles at Alabama and LSU had won a title just 2 years earlier, and had 2 titles in the past 5 years. It's not hard to imagine that at that point in time, before Saban proved himself at Alabama, that LSU was the favorite.

If anything this just backs the trend (that the SEC favors the favorites) that has been pointed out already in this thread.

quote:

---

Im not sure i understand what you mean here. Would you clarify please.

---

You scoffed at the remarks that pointed to refs ignoring 3 holding penalties on Bama's TD this season and pointed to the real problem being LSU's play call, execution, etc. Poor play call, poor execution, whatever, doesn't justify refs giving a free TD to your opponents. That one play accounted for 70% of the points scored that game.

The conversation isn't whether or not LSU's play calling was good or bad, its about ref bias. Bring up LSU's problems is off topic.