The NFL is starting this week, and the big talk around the league is primarily centered around questions like, "do you think he'll be listed on the injury report," or "are the Rams waiting too long to travel to Australia?" Meanwhile, in college football, we're only a week into the season, and we've already had one officiating controversy/conspiracy over a mysterious clock only a select few people can see, and the SEC threatening to kick LSU out of the conference. As for that clock controversy, while I believe what happened to Western Michigan in their 13-12 loss to Michigan was horrible, the incident should also serve as a lesson. Now, I'm not going to swim in the "the Big Ten protected Michigan and it's all one big conspiracy" waters.
That seems far too complicated an operation to pull off on the spot. I prefer to buy into the "refs blow calls all the time, and they simply screwed up this process the same way they screw up multiple replay reviews every week." But the lesson is that replay reviews need to be totally transparent in this day and age. You are reading a column at this very moment in which I give you gambling advice.
You are doing this because you are probably looking to bet on college football games this weekend. Leagues, conferences, and the networks that broadcast them all accept money from the places where you're looking to bet. You cannot afford to have any hint of impropriety when there's so much on the line financially for everybody involved.
If the refs are going to get a call wrong, the whole world needs to watch them get it wrong in real time. If they are using a mysterious clock you'd never heard of until last week, despite watching football your entire life, you need to see it in real time. You need to hear them talking about how they're about to blow this call and screw over one of the teams by pure incompetence, without malice.
And, you know, you'll see them get a lot of calls correct, too. At the end of the day, the more everybody knows about the process, the less controversy and questions there will be. The ACC has been doing this for a while, and the Big Ten announced it would do do the same from here on out.
Every league has to do it for every game. It will be annoying at times, but reviews already are. Perhaps this way we'll all learn to be a bit more empathetic and understanding of mistakes and why they happen.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
