College Football Officiating Needs an Overhaul

Unfortunately, one thing Nichols can't control is how much top officials work, since they are assigned by conference supervisors and not by Nichols. Most of them work virtually every night because they are in demand and no one says to them, "Whoa, you can't work one night in Hawaii and the next night in Florida without being tired."

That, by the way, is not hyperbole. In November, Ed Hightower, a fine official and a good man, worked the Duke-Marquette championship game in Maui on the night before Thanksgiving, got on a plane, flew through two time zones, changed planes, flew through three more time zones and then worked George Mason-Kansas State in Orlando less than 21 hours after the game in Maui ended.

There's no way any official should be allowed to work on a schedule like that.

It is time for the NCAA to take control of officiating in both football and basketball. It needs to -- gasp! -- spend some money and hire a core of fulltime officials for both football and basketball. Pay them a reasonable amount of money so they don't feel the need to overwork and then hold them accountable for their work.

The first thing the NCAA will say is it can't afford to hire full-time officials because of benefits packages, insurance and things like that. Bologna. The NCAA and its member schools are flush, in spite of all their cries of poverty. One rule change would produce all the money needed to finance fulltime officials: forbid home football teams from staying in a hotel the night before a game.

Talk about needless expense and excess. Coaches insist that players must stay together in a hotel to get a good night's sleep. Please. All you have to do is let the rest of the student body know it is important that the boys get their sleep and they will be left alone in their dorms. If you want to have coaches do bed checks, fine. But imagine how much money would be saved if you eliminate paying for 100 (or more) hotel rooms six or seven times each season at all 119 division I-A schools. If getting sleep for the players at home becomes difficult, some big-time coaches might even schedule an occasional non-conference road game.

Once the money is there, officials should become full-time employees. They should be required to take a test on all the rules before they are allowed to work. They should be subjected to penalties when they make a mistake, the more egregious the error, the more egregious the penalty. Not knowing the rules should be at least a one-year suspension, if not a firing offense.

In basketball, officials should be limited to working no more than four nights a week. Their travel should be set up so that they aren't traveling all night through time zones to work the next night.

Football officials should be assigned to postseason games based on the quality of their work, not on a rotation system. In basketball, conference supervisors send reports throughout the year to Nichols, who then does the best he can to pick postseason officials based on merit.

Also, the officials should be accountable to the public. If players and coaches have to answer questions after they make a mistake, officials should have to do the same. Initially, the officials in the Poinsettia Bowl refused comment on their screw-up. Finally, after bowl officials pushed them because the mistake made was so obvious, they put out a statement admitting an error had been made.

No one was allowed to ask any questions though, like, "Did the officials on the field ask the replay official if the ball hit the pylon?" or, the simpler question: "How in the world could you not know the rule?" or, "Why didn't you ask for help?" The same thing applies to the officials of the Holiday Bowl: "Why wasn't Texas given an instant misconduct penalty for having people on the field during a play?"

In truth, it would help officials most of the time to be able to explain themselves. It would make them more sympathetic to the public, because we would hear their voices the way we hear the voices of players and coaches.

One other thing college football needs to change right now that won't cost any money: the first down rule. The notion of stopping the clock after every first down is ludicrous. It should only be stopped in the last two minutes of the half and the last two minutes of the game. College football games are wildly entertaining but take way too long, especially during bowl season when ESPN doesn't let most games kick-off until 8:10 on the east coast, meaning games drag on until midnight and beyond.

If the first down rule were changed, it would take 10 to 15 minutes off of every game. Sure, there would be fewer plays, but there are already plenty to go around.

And, if the officials ever learned all the rules and how to run a game without 12-minute delays and without going to the replay booth on every other call, we'd all enjoy the games more.

There's no reason for officiating to be this bad in a sport this good.