College Football Officiating Needs an Overhaul

The NCAA hired David Parry last week to coordinate college football officiating, a bold step forward that comes only 20 years after Hank Nichols was hired to do the same job in basketball.

Those folks in Indianapolis are quick thinkers.

Maybe the first thing the new coordinator can do is make sure that everyone working as a college football official actually knows the rules.

The bowl season -- which is slightly longer and a good deal less meaningful than the regular season -- began Dec. 20 with Navy hooking up with Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl in an entertaining, competitive and -- as with all college football games -- endless evening. Late in the game, with Utah up 28-25, one of the Utes fumbled the ball as he dove for the goal line and the ball bounced off the pylon.

That's a touchback. Navy would get the ball at the 20 yard line.

I knew that. I would say a large chunk of those watching knew that. But the replay official in the press box did not know the rule. He saw the ball hit the pylon and told the officials on the field that the ball had been fumbled out of bounds and should be spotted inside the 1-yard line.

Maybe if the referee bothered to ask the replay official if the ball hit the pylon, especially since Navy's coaches were screaming about it, the officials would have gotten the play right.

That didn't happen. How much that poor ruling cost Navy is hard to say and isn't the point here. You can't have officials who don't know the rules. The amateurish level of college football officiating has been an embarrassment for years and seems to only be getting worse.

In the Holiday Bowl -- if you are looking for references to the corporate names plastered all over the bowls, go to ESPN where (corporate name) bowl week brings you the (corporate name) bowl presented by (corporate name) and brought to you by (corporate name, corporate name, corporate name) -- Mack Brown's stepson, who surprisingly enough is employed by Mack Brown, stepped onto the field during an Arizona State fumble and may or may not have touched the ball.

It took the officials twelve minutes to sort the play out and they were still confused about what down should be done after they ruled the ball had been touched.

Again, all sorts of questions come to mind: why wasn't unsportsmanlike conduct ruled immediately for people being on the field during a play when the Texas bench had already been warned once for not being far enough back on the sidelines? Why does anything take 12 minutes to decide in a football game when you can change your car insurance in 15 minutes?

College football officiating stinks. In fact, college basketball officiating -- a much harder game to call -- is a lot better than football officiating in large part because Nichols has worked extremely hard to tighten the reins and make officials accountable.