There was clear evidence in the video that the receiver was wearing an orange and blue uniform, that was all the officials needed to see.
From Saturday down South rank all 14 SEC programs by the amount of penalties accrued across the past 5 seasons. Keep in mind, these rankings are based on an average of total penalties/total games played, so the results don’t skew in favor of those playing less games. It also includes all games, including CFP matchups and bowl games. All stats found via CFB Stats.com. Alabama: 6.81 per game Ole Miss: 6.81 per game Missouri: 6.80 per game Tennessee: 6.7 per game Florida: 6.5 per game Mississippi State: 6.4 per game Auburn: 6.4 per game Texas A&M 6.4 per game Arkansas: 6.3 per game South Carolina: 6.1 per game LSU: 5.8 per game Kentucky: 5.6 per game Vanderbilt: 5.5 per game Georgia: 5.2 per game A few things to notice here. For one, most teams averaged about 6-6.5 penalties per game across the past 5 seasons and only 4 – LSU, Kentucky, Georgia and Vanderbilt – averaged less than 6. Georgia is in a league of its own here, too. The Bulldogs averaged a full penalty less per game than 9 other SEC programs and essentially a penalty less than South Carolina at No. 10.
Actually, no one has asked me what is my view on the situation, but I start from David Hume’s dictum "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish”. Applied here, Hume is basically asking us to consider what is more likely: 1) that the institution of officiating is not about policing illegal actions but acts a secret arm of the conferences to tip the scales in favor of the highest grossing teams, or 2) that some fans are biased in favor of their own teams. Given the evidence we have for hypothesis 2, I think there is strong reason to prefer this as our prior. As the founder of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer has noted, one of the reasons to be skeptical of conspiracy theories is that it’s just unlikely that they would be able to control all the people involved in them. How is it that we’ve never had one ref, even anonymously, come forward about this? In addition, during the Meyer years, the fans of other SEC fan bases suggested that Florida was the sacred cow being protected, all while our own fans were convinced of a persistent bias against Florida. Its tough to marshal these inconsistent viewpoints into a cogent theory. So all I am saying is that before I move over into the conspiracy camp, I’d just like something more than fan opinions. Since no one seems willing to look for this evidence, I just did it myself. Indeed, this has been studied empirically, and it does seem that too teams are called for fewer penalties: Do college football referees make biased calls on fouls? Some research suggests yes. That said, there are a few rather important caveats to the study. 1) They found a correlation, but this doesn’t indicate causation. It might simply be that teams win more because they are more disciplined and commit fewer penalties. And 2) contrary to @tommyvee ’s intuition, they actually found the SEC to be the least biased conference: “Some of the study's conclusions defy more-cynical views. For instance, teams favored by Vegas tended to get significantly more discretionary calls against them than underdogs. Ref-baiters might be distressed to learn that the SEC-winners of eight of the last 10 national titles-appears to have the least biased officials.” So in the end, I am still a bit cautious of the hypothesis, but I’m also willing to keep an open mind as none of this is ironclad proof against the conspiracy either. I just want some additional justification for the claim over the alternative.
And now they wear yoga shorts to play football in. Weird, I don't recall any changes to the equipment rules.
It wasn't Rhett. It was Miss St in 2000- the disaster game. Rhett was long gone. This was a ridiculous penalty because it was only for a second. We also got a penalty in the Sugar vs Miami that year for a WR signaling first down. I've never seen that before or since. But there used to be a lot of ridiculous celebration penalties- they called one on Vandy in the Swamp for a 1 second dance in the end zone. Vandy said it cost them the game. (It didn't but it was a dumb penalty.) OTOH in the Swindle an FSU player scored a TD then started off the field, went back and "posed" against the goal post. A clear penalty. None called. And then Rix did a throat slash toward our bench after a TD. Same thing- NO CALL. There is some bias in officiating. I will add we seem to forget when its in our favor.
Good article and I need more details as to what criteria the SEC was less biased and as compared to which conferences? The two I mentioned as being more fair (PAC 12 and Big XII) were not mentioned in the article. Overall, good to see that someone is doing the research. As long as there are big money, there will be rules that allow for judgment calls and these judgments can be influenced. When these refs are making $2000-2500 a game and there really is no consequences for their errant “judgments,” no wonder this is such a big part of the game. This is why most fans say the NFL or football or basketball is rigged. It’s because it is.
I like the data you are showing here, I would be curious what the breakdowns are when these teams play conference games or at least eliminate the non P5 opponents. I firmly believe that to fully expose the penalty bias you have to watch what games the calls happen in and more importantly when the calls are happening. What I mean by the above statement is up 28 Bama gets 3-4 holding calls, maybe a PI here or there. Those penalties show up in their game average, but they have little to no impact on the game itself. They never get those holding calls against them when the game is tight. Show me how many plays of 20 or more yards get called back, or how many TDs scored get called back due to a penalty for Bama/UGA and compare it to UF. Show me how many third down stops are negated due to PI for those teams? I'd really like to know how many 3rd down or 4th down stops are negated due to roughing the passer. It seems like once a year we have one that literally costs us a game. UGA DBs put their hands on guys throughout the entire route they are never called for PI or defensive holding. Is this because you can't call it every play, so they just do it until they're called more than once? Kind of like in basketball some teams just feel like they're in your jersey all game, and so officials can't call a foul every trip down the court and it gets overlooked and classified as physical play.
Supposedly they’ve changed the way they enforce it now. Refs have been instructed to go through the equipment before the game and get any issues they have corrected then. Supposedly if they can stretch the pants down over the knees once, they’re good with it regardless of how they are during the game. If they can’t, they have to change to pants that will stretch over the knee. They’re essentially removing the penalty now. I think it looks stupid and it’s impractical. Why would you not want your knee’s protected? Especially rb’s, db’s, wr’s? Most of them don’t wear thigh pads, hip pads, or tailbone pads anymore either. Just the capri pants.
And does anybody know the rule where they stopped play and told LSU that a player was ineligible without any consequences? I know an injured player cannot participate in the next play, but why did the refs tell LSU and allow them time to substitute without penalty?
How about the auburn player that did a somersault into the endzone to score...no penalty called there either..2006 game..our only loss The ones in our favor..very few
How about an adjustment(subset) for just SEC games its well documented that the sec champ gets penalties in playoff series from neutral officials they dont normally get flagged for in conference. Bama holding comes to mind
It does not matter if the ball touches the ground... becasue he had total control before and after it hit the ground. He always maintained control of the ball. That is the rule... not whether the ball touched ever the ground or not.
I am inferring that their measure of bias is the strength of the negative correlation between program success and penalty rate. In that way, they must have picked up the weakest association between these two factors in the SEC. Indeed the sport may be rigged. I just know that fans are biased, so I think we need more than fan perceptions to demonstrate that it is so. I do agree with the article that we should likely move away from conference refs, even if I’m not convinced by the rigged hypothesis. I do believe in bias in all people, including refs, and I think it might help with fan perceptions. (Though even if we went to national refs, Im guessing a new theory would emerge regarding the protection of national sacred cows).
I was watching some game Saturday and a team rushed to the line and snapped it, started running and refs blew it dead to review the previous play. Didn’t think they could do that
Here’s an option: If the standard is “indisputable” evidence, get a group of like 5 officials reviewing the call. In order for the call to be overturned, their opinion on the call must be unanimous. No time for discussing the call, either. They all must simply say the same thing, and if they don’t, the call on the field stands. I can see a case where the replay official just freeze-framed this catch, saw that the ball hit the ground (which I think it did) and thought that the correct call was “no-catch” because that’s what he saw. Much harder to get tunnel vision if you’re forced to rely on a second, third, and fourth opinion. Either way, I think you have to pick your battles. Whining about officiating rarely does anything. You have to build credibility so people believe you in actual egregious cases like the Swindle in the Swamp. Complaining about a call here and there in a game you lost 52-35 where the defense couldn’t stop a nose bleed isn’t the time to do that. The better team won the game and the better team deserved to win the game.
