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 It is no secret. Everyone is fully aware that the SEC Referee crews and Replay Officials as well have missed numerous calls this season. In one instance an entire officiating crew was suspended from calling a game due to egregiously blown calls. Are the problems simply human error or do they cut deeper than that?
First, do not lose sight that the officiating problems that fans are witnessing this season are not new. Most SEC fans have been complaining about calls for years. It is the nature of the beast. If you pull for a particular team, guess what? It will likely be your perception that the referees are against your team. If you switch teams, you will witness the same anomaly from that team's perspective as well.
Referees are human and humans do make mistakes. No one enjoys watching contests that are called too tightly. At the same time, missing obvious calls when they occur right in front of the official is bad for business ... this is how conspiracy theories gain life in the first place,
Is the conspiracy theory that the SEC league office wanted to ensure that Florida and Alabama meet in the SEC title game valid? In one word? No. If you are willing to fall for the prevailing theories that abound on the internet, I have a car that I would love to sell you. Seriously, does anyone honestly believe that well over 100 people could keep a secret of that magnitude? In the South? Not going to happen. Put the conspiracy theories to bed ... forget them ... they are about as real as George Michaels is straight.
The referees are human and they are going to miss some calls. That is why the SEC included the replay official in the mix. Several calls this season that were obviously blown on the field went to the replay official ... who did not over turn many of the blown calls. Why?
The replay official does not have access to the myriad of camera angles that one sees on television. In an average game that can have up to sixteen separate camera angles for the same play, the replay official needs to be able to see the play from the same angles the fans are seeing it from. It is not a very difficult concept to grasp.
Honestly, how hard would it be for the replay official's television to be hooked up to the network's feed?
We aren't asking for miracles here. The fans simply want the officials calling the game (all of them) to have the chance to get it right. The fix for the problems with the replay officiating is not a high tech, advanced fix ... it is a piece of video cable, software to run the individual camera shots, and a remote... that is it. Give the replay official what he needs to do his job.
Is money the issue? It should not be. After all, the SEC signed multi-year, multi-billion dollar deals with ESPN and CBS to broadcast SEC games. In order to fix the replay officiating problems, the total dollar amount would be far less than a thousand dollars. I believe the league office can spare this amount of money.
Now that the replay officiating is fixed, let's take a look at the actual in-game officials. According to an archived article on DecaturDaily.com from three years ago:
There are 10 crews that work SEC football. For rookies, the pay is around $800 a game. A topped-out veteran can make as much as $2,200 a game with some of your expenses covered.
Working in championship games and bowl games can increase the pay scale.
That was the known pay scale from three years ago. We would find it difficult to believe the pay amount has not gone up. It is known that for SEC basketball officials, the average pay and per diem is approximately $2100 per game ... come on MSM, get us some research on this one.
Most fans realize that the SEC Officials do not exactly make a killing for calling the games. While to some a couple of thousand for four hours of work seems like a mint, one must realize the entire background of the officiating game. SEC referees are subjected to constant scrutiny from not only the fans, but the SEC front office as well. The referee's work is reviewed weekly. Poor on-field performance can and has led to suspensions.
The SEC referees, like the officials of the other BCS conferences, typically maintain careers outside of officiating. While many fans are glad that several referees have chosen not to quit their day jobs, something needs to be done. Although we have outlined above how to fix the replay officiating problems, the SEC needs to be the leader on this and step outside of the box:
Hire full-time football referees. Even if it is half of each crew, have full-time officials that report directly to the NCAA instead of the SEC. Yes, this would not come cheaply ... nothing ever does.
By going with full-timers, the SEC would have extreme accountability for their officials. Again, it is not like the SEC does not have the money (it does). While I realize that this is more of a pipe-dream, and could have its own set of problems, something must be done ... other than SEC Commissioner Mike Slive "strengthening SEC Bylaw 10.5.4. Simply telling the coaches to shut up will not make this problem go away.
With each passing week, as more and more calls are missed or blown, the SEC fans are slowly becoming disillusioned with the officiating. Once fan apathy has been reached, it will be very difficult to bring the fans back.
We do not know all of the solutions to fix this, but we do know that there is a very obvious problem. Put yourself in Slive's size three shoes ... what do you do to fix it?
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