Happy Halloween Coug Fans! Today is supposed to be the scariest day of the year, full of chills, frights, horrors and dread. Of course, we are Coug fans so thats just an average Saturday for us. We’re also never ones to pass up an opportunity to party, so there will probably be plenty of this going on at the Campus Commons tonight…
This costume is available in the walk-in cooler at Dissmores and it comes with free beer!
Since we are celebrating Halloween I thought it would be a good time to discuss the scariest thing in all of College Football…
Pac-12 referees, YIKES!
“So, we’re going to go by powder puff rules? Roger that.”
The much maligned Pac-12 officials had an awful weekend and have been getting beat up by just about everyone, including Vince Grippi who went so far as to say, “the conference is losing all credibility”. Well I am all to happy to go right ahead and pile on. The sad fact is that if you are a fan of terrible officiating you can tune in to any Pac-12 football game and get more than your fill. This weekend, some of you may have taken pleasure seeing the Huskies on the receiving end of cartoonishly inept officiating, but unfortunately we were getting treated to it as well. Once again the Cougs were flagged for what the refs deemed a flagrant hit by Casey Locker who has become a famillair target for this kind of call. There are good intentions behind the new rules about dangerous hits on vulnerable players, and at first I felt the refs were flagging any big hit they saw as a reflexive response to this new emphasis. But for a reflex, it sure is selective. Against Oregon State Jeff Tuel took a shot near the end of the first half from a player leading with his helmet after he had already thrown the ball. Nobody even reached for their flag. But apparently Casey Locker can’t even get within shouting distance of an opposing player without hankies flying all over the field. There is just no ryhme or reason to it. It also doesn’t help when making an unnecessary roughness call on a hit that occured during live play before the whistle, the ref announces that it is a “dead ball” personal foul. They did this twice during the OSU game. It doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence that these guys know what they’re doing.
“How the hell am I the one on the hot seat?”
Larry Scott has promised reforms to the officiating in the Pac-12 and I am confident we’ll see some improvements in the coming years, but clearly this isn’t an improvement that is going to happen over night. So far this season, the officiating seems just as rediculous as it has always been. Sometimes I feel like if our officials are going to be this incompentant, would we really be any worse off hiring some new ones…
Happy Halloween everyone, and Go Cougs!
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