Michigan vs. FSU, Orange Bowl, 8pm, ESPN, Game Day - Post Game Discussion

[hack]

A measurement is not needed and a moot point in that circumstance.


Good point. Had not thought of that. Thanks.

You still have a bunch of 50/50 calls -- 4 or 5, by your count. I would have been happy with just one of them going our way. If we got our one from the three candidates in the latter half of the fourth quarter or in OT, we win the game for sure. If we got our one in the first half, still might have been enough. I'm just asking to get one of those 50/50 calls. Still not convinced that we should not be curious about how refs are selected.

Still though, good point about the series starting on the 25 and therefore no need for chains. So I guess that's your one. The rest of you is still, well ... whatever it is that you are.

[WingsFan]

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[SeattleLionsFan]

I don't think the problem is with any one call, but in cumulative. The odds of a coin coming up heads 10 times in a row is not 50/50. The PI that was missed was a great example. It was a mirror image of the "uncatchable PI" that gave OSU a first down on the game tying drive. But one time it was called (which allowed OSU) to continue its drive. The next time it wasn't, thereby ending Ms drive. I think it's incompetence, but it's definitely lopsided.

As to the unsportsmanlike penalty, what did he do that warranted the penalty? I think we've all seen coaches and players do much worse.

[WingsFan]

Big Ten looks small in not addressing officiating


It was a justifiable action. But with that, the conference said the matter is closed.

Fat chance.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/josh-peter/2016/11/28/big-ten-officiating-jim-harbaugh-michigan-fine/94570042/

[Jeff Buchanan]

You are asserting that the BT Front Office's process of assigning officials to The Game is flawed because the head of the crew was once fired for incompetence? In the biggest version of your marquee game in a decade?

Where is that information upon which you are basing your assertion coming from? An Internet poster? What are the circumstances of his "firing" if that is actually what happened? Was he placed on suspension and remediated? When did this happen? Last season? 10 or more years ago? The point is what are the facts? We don't have those and your assertion (that the assignment process is flawed and by extension produced a biased official) fails because of it.

Baseless claims and assertions is what I am interested in eliminating - and we had a lot of those, right here, in this forum after the game.

I'm not going to argue calls with you. Neither one of us are particularly skilled in officiating CFB games. There are unbiased posters who are that have posted here and explained why a call might have gone a certain way; why its difficult to see everything; why calls are missed when an official is trying to keep track of 22 players moving at bang-bang speeds.

I think you are trying to make a case that there was bias'ed officiating and that the selection of these particular officials for The Game came about as a result of a flawed BT process for doing that. As a result, that biased officiating affected the outcome of the game.

I think you are wrong.

[hack]

The unsportsmanlike was well deserved. Was it reasonable to maybe lay off a bit, and give a warning? Perhaps. Refs had to know, that every 50/50 call so far had gone against the guy. If you're a good ref you're not out there to grind him down into fury. The fact that the ref in question cited basketball rules doesn't mean it was a bad call, but it sure is a competence question. Harbaugh was never more right in that press conference then when he pointed out the ridiculousness of citing basktball in a football game. It looked like unsportsmanlike conduct to me, and if it did to the ref too he could have and should have had a football justification.

But, yeah -- bottom line, all those 50/50 coin tosses came up the same way, despite the very long odds of that. And, within that lack of randomness was the fact that four of them were third-down PI calls. PI was clearly called differently for each team. When you factor that in it is getting harder and harder to just assume it was random.

I agree that you can take any one thing in isolation and it looks harmless, but the cumulate effect just gets worse with each one. So many judgement calls and such a consistent approach to them. Not consistent based on interpreting a rule, but consistent in terms of who benefited. That's why the coverage could persist. A normal blown-call controversy is a 24-hour thing. We'll see if it persists. If I'm in Warde Manuel's office, I call in Nick Baumgardner tomorrow to feed him something on it, and then on Thursday call in a national-level reporter to feed that person something else. All's fair in love and war, and all that. Like Hannibal said.

[hack]

The lead official was Daniel Capron. Back in 2002, he was fired by the Big 10 for poor officiating of a Purdue/Wake Forest game. This is what Big Ten commish Jim Delany said at the time: “During the course of the game, these officials did not officiate well enough to meet Big Ten standards. Therefore, they will forfeit future officiating assignments.” It’s unclear when or how Capron was reinstated.

http://thebiglead.com/2016/11/29/this-conspiracy-theory-about-the-referees-in-ohio-state-michigan-has-some-merit/

Well, Jeff, you and I are different. The fact that we don't know means to me that we should go find out. To you it means something else. So, we both think the other is wrong. But you can look and see for yourself plenty of places on the internet that Capron was fired after a Purdue/Wake Forest game. It's not hard to go find that stuff. It is harder to get at answers to the question of why, but that simply begs for the kind of transparency I'm talking about. It's only in the conference's interest to do so, unless they would rather an enduring focus on their own processes rather than what happens on the field.

[Hannibal]

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Both of those matchups are favorable.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Big Ten looks small in not addressing officiating


It was a justifiable action. But with that, the conference said the matter is closed.

Fat chance.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports...fine/94570042/

Another article substantiating it's position by bringing in an incident involving a BT official that Joe Tiller got pissed off about 14y ago as proof that the officials were biased in favor of osu. A reach.

One thing the author of that piece did tell us that is useful is that conferences have trouble hanging on to their best officials because they move up the ladder, full time to the NFL. That implies what's left is not tht great. OK, fine.

I'm fully prepared to advocate for a different way of hiring, training and retaining CFB Officials. Let's talk about that but lets not talk about the outcome of The Game being influenced by biased officials.

[WingsFan]

Colorado beats Washington. That would have Michigan beat the Big Ten Champ and the Pac 12 Champ. If Clemson loses too would be interesting.

[hack]

Ban me if you want to Jeff, but that's asinine. The conference fired the guy, and you reword that as ``an incident involving a BT offical...'' I know you are bending over backwards to prevent this discussion from devolving, but come on already. We know that the conference itself has prevented guys from officiating The Game because they came from Ohio, including one guy that did officiate The Game this year. So according to the league's own standards -- unless they have changed, but nobody seems to know -- there are conflict-of-interest rules. Are you actually saying that it is unreasonable for us to hold the conference to a lower standard than the one it has set for itself? How the heck are you going to justify that?

Furthermore why turn my request for clarification into an assertion that I think the refs were biased? I have already said that one should not attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. Today and on Sunday. Why would you inflate my argument into something is isn't, so you can assert that the conference should not be held to the standards it has aimed to meet in the past? I can't see a single justification for that.

[WingsFan]

Let's talk about that but lets not talk about the outcome of The Game being influenced by biased officials.

Ohio State plays 5 quarters of perfect football? (besides not having a mouthpiece in) don't think it was the reason we lost, but it definitely contributed to it.

[hack]

"During the course of the game, these officials did not officiate well enough to meet Big Ten standards," Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement. "Therefore, they will forfeit future officiating assignments."

Are you saying Delaney is in on my questionable attempt to assert that this ref was fired?

[WingsFan]

How on earth were these guys chosen to work the game? Even if we ignore the probable prejudice of Schwarzel and Sagers, Daniel Capron demonstrated a lack of proficiency as an official in the past that was bad enough to have him disallowed from officiating in 2002, by Jim Delaney… who is still Big Ten Commissioner today.

[hack]

We don't know if those two were prejudiced or not, but we do have something suggesting that that, at least at one time, in-state guys were not allowed to work The Game. So we don't know for sure, but it sure seems like the conference recognizes that problem, or at least did under the same leadership it has now. I would just like to know if that's true or not. That's a starting point.