re: The Great SEC Officiating Conspiracy

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That's great and all. But the penalties called last Saturday fall squarely on the shoulders of the team.

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I'm curious as to how you would make that judgment.

Yes, when a flag was thrown, you looked at the replay and said. "Oh yes that's a penalty."

For instance, when Pocic was called for holding, you saw his arm out and said, I see it. But you wouldn't see Syracuse holding on plays that were not called.

LSU was called for hitting a player out of bounds.

When SU did it, it was not called.

We're told that the reason for penalties is players being out of position, lack of discipline, etc.

But LSU is more penalized than other teams even when they play inferior opponents.

The truth is that no one wants to believe that referees cheat. If you believed that, it would be more difficult to watch the game, to anticipate future ones etc. But it does happen.

[quote Okay.............so what is the motive?[/quote]

When you see a schedule listed for a game and that number like (-7) for one team. That's the point $pread.

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Just go watch the UTK UF game

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Who is UTK?

If you mean Tennessee, they definitely F'ed up UT at the end with the clock stopping then running because the ref gave conflicting signals.

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Okay.............so what is the motive?

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I don't think there is enough there to claim some kind of motive. Certainly, I think you can make a claim for unintentional bias. The SEC officiating offices are located in Birmingham, AL, and the head of officials is an Alabama guy. If nothing else, the SEC could be accused of allowing an obvious conflict of interest.

Chef that call was either right or wrong it was too close for second guessing,I saw him onsides I have good eyes !

I wish they would breakdown the objective penalties(off sides, illegal formation etc) vs the subjective penalties(holding, PI) and base the differential on subjective penalties only.

I didn't walk away from the article with the same takeaways that the author did.

The author seems fixated with comparing LSU's penalties to Bama and the other schools, in order to prove or disprove an officiating bias through the lens of the rest of the SEC and Bama, in particular.

That doesn't disprove or discredit the hard data that:

1. Ritter's crew flag LSU at a greater rate than other teams.
2. Ritter's crew works more LSU games than any other crew.

This is not just about the Bama game. This is about Ritter.

The author's narrative at the conclusion is focused on the wrong topic.

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Unfortunately, this means we can't drum Tom Ritter out of the SEC for being a dirty cheater who is helping out Alabama.

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No, we can drum Tom Ritter out of the SEC for disproportionately flagging LSU for some unknown reason. ASK WHY. Bama is irrelevant to this discussion.

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However, LSU fans are correct when they complain that the refs throw more flags against LSU than their opponents, and its worse for LSU than any team in the SEC.

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Ritter is a direct cause of this.

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Now, it is up to you to decide whether that margin is legitimate or the product of unconscious bias. It is not, however, the product of a league wide conspiracy.

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We don't need it to be a league-wide conspiracy. We need our questions to focus on RITTER.

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Really, the only thing LSU can do to stem the penalty tide is to somehow eliminate all unconscious bias against the Tigers as an undisciplined team who commits too many penalties. Good luck fighting that narrative.

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WRONG. That's not the only thing we can do. We can have Ritter investigated.

The more general LSU makes its argument, the weaker it is. The more targeted we make it, the stronger it is.

The data shows Ritter flags LSU at an absurdly high rate. The data shows we pull Ritter's crew more than any other crew.

Ask why. FRAME the argument around Ritter.

One last thing: do you think Bama would put up with this shite? Do you think they wouldn't ask questions about a specific ref? Why are we so eager to run up the white flag and say we can't do anything about it?

I would be curious to see the spreads of those games over the same period of time. I do not believe this is a bias against a single team however point shaving could be a possibility. I find it interesting that Bama AND LSU are power running teams that are often favored and their offense can GREATLY effected by an ill timed penalty which ritter seems to like to throw against both of these teams based on the data. Not in a way that loses the game but in a way that in say a 24 point spread may cause the game to be closer on the scoreboard.