Pate on officiating: Discuss

Those clowns get things wrong even on replay... It's a bias that has to be fixed.

 

^This
And the first thing that needs to happen is eliminating the conference refs. That won’t fix all the bias, but it will remove a couple of obvious incentives for crooked officiating

 

I've been saying it for years that you can't have the SEC head of officials being an alumnus from one of the participating schools and certainly we shouldn't have officials that have graduated from SEC schools working conference games like they do, but I'm sure it will continue because money and control of the system that generates the money is what matters.

 

It is pretty simple IMO. One, if you have professional refs - they make enough money to raise the numbers of candidates to good levels - and then second there are standards of performance. If you choose to fall short of those standards, you WILL be replaced. And if we think meritocracily, they can get demoted to the lower levels to get back into the higher level or they can move on. Their choice.

Until sports takes refereeing seriously, it will continue to be questioned. But it is up to us to stop whining and vote with our wallets. That has always been the problem, blind loyalty.

 

CFB, especially the $EC, is a business existing for one purpose, profit. Lower wages to employees (referees or players) means higher margins. The bonus of bad refereeing is controversy- and bad publicity beats no publicity (especially when the titans get breaks). “Tell me how someone is rewarded and I will tell you how they behave.” In CFB, the only reward conferences, schools, coaches and now players focus on is money… We as fans could agree that some things (ie, academics, not cheating, levelish playing field, etc.) are more important than unfettered capitalism, but only stopping the spigot of cash changes behavior.

 

Not having professional year around refs is ridiculous. Another case of schools wanting to keep all the money and not fund a professional crew. I realize 125 teams can’t afford it but the ones that can’t shouldn’t be on the field with the top 30-40 programs that are operating on an entirely different level. They need to go to 48 teams in four conferences and only play within that realm. Those 48 teams would have the capital to fund what’s needed and would generate much more money than they do now while playing half a schedule of complete garbage games.

 

I agree with you in general. However, you may of missed the post about the conferences having their own referees/officials and having those people with deep connections to the colleges within those conferences.

This scenario sets up Home Cooking (bad officiating) with the in conference games and in games with two teams from competing conferences.
The NCAA's should of taken control of the officiating many years ago.

Another factor is the money being paid to these referees.

"The salaries of College Football Referees in the US range from $11,753 to $314,406 , with a median salary of $57,014 . The middle 57% of College Football Referees makes between $57,015 and $142,490, with the top 86% making $314,406."

$12K plus expenses, for a four month job is a very good gig. I know that more time goes into this profession. However, this is not a 52 week a year job. When you look at the medium annual salary of $57,014, that is not a bad gig either for four months.

Of course handing this responsibility to the NCAA would be useless if the standards/criteria for qualifying for a position, keeping a position, and moving up the ladder need to be high.

Link: how much do college football referees make - Google Search

 

For starters, eliminate conference aligned crews all together. Put all the crews in a pot and draw assignments weekly. Another glaring problem that needs to fixed is incompetence. Suspend and fire those that make major blunders. Also please stop mandated via “points of interest” what they can and can’t call. I.E. offensive holding…….see it, call it.

 

I agree with this yet what I was saying about 48 teams comes into play. We want the 48 teams to have the 24 best crews working only their games. We don’t need minor conference referees calling our games

 

They need to open it up for criticism and accountability. It’s the only profession you aren’t even allowed to talk about

 

Exactly what are you asking for?

 

I work with someone who is a college ref. No idea how much he makes doing officiating but he pulls in around $190k in his full-time job. So he doesnt ref for the money.

 

The NFL doesn’t have full-time, year around refs, either

 

I do not doubt your statement. In fact, I have heard and read of similar stories of refs being in good careers outside of football officiating.

 

Thanks for posting that.
This may be the ideal type of person to be a game official on a big stage. Officials doing it because they love the game, keeping in shape or whatever the reason other than having to do it to make ends meet seems good to me.
Of course if there is adequate pay just being a referee/umpire that is another matter. But when you factor in health insurance, retirement benefits, etc it is going to be excessive income for a few days work a year. Referees don’t have to recruit, train or spend an inordinate amount of time beyond game days. Obviously, they do have to stay in good physical condition.
The one element I wish could be eliminated is bias. This could be facilitated by not allowing alumni or persons connected with a school to officiate games involving that school. I did say facilitate: I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate it.
No matter who officiates games if there is no accountability or consequences to poor performance, then the quality of officiating will be compromised.

 

It is pretty hard to be non-bias in any game. When I watch a game that I don’t have a dog in the fight, I still find myself rooting for one team or the other and sometimes I don’t even know which team that is going to be until I start watching the game.