Clemson/UNC Offsides!!!!

For those who didn't see it, with over a minute remaining, and 3 time outs left, UNC clearly recovered an onsides kick at midfield. Too bad, a flag comes flying, they were offsides...... Except they weren't, not even close! Offsides on kickoffs is a rare penalty call, one which the refs tend to not call unless the offender is WAY offsides. But some ref decided to make believe a player was offsides. They work all year to get into this game. They play 60 hard fought minutes and then a ref just makes up a call out of thin air. No repercussions. Rant over.

It is not uncommon for it to be called in an onside kick formation.

But I agree that it was a terrible call. Sadly, that play was not review-able.

I saw it. Bad call. Bad calls used to be part of the game. Now it's a mess. Certain things are reviewable, certain not. I mean if the object is to get the calls right, why are certain things not reviewable??

Personally, I am not a big fan of reviews in any sport. It takes away from the natural moment of the game. So, if you are going to go the path of "getting the calls right" then everything must be reviewable. Now that doesn't mean I want everything reviewed. I think each coach should have a set number of challenges and that's it. No different rules of automatic reviews on certain plays or different rules in the last 2 minutes.

This way the reviews would be limited and it would be the coach's responsibility to not squander his reviews on relatively minor miscalls. Save one for a big play at the end of the game that really matters. And if he didn't save one and there is a critical play that he can't review, then he mismanaged his reviews, just like coach's mismanage their timeouts.

At least this way there would be an opportunity to correct an officiating mistake on the biggest play of the game, without slowing the game to worse of a crawl than it already is.

And actually it is more than just a question of fairness. While NCAA, NFL, MLB don't condone sports wagers, the fact is that it is a reality, and as such these should want to protect the "integrity" of the game by removing even the remote possibility of referee participated sports fixing.

I never understood why there were different review rules on the last 2 minutes. Why are those 2 minutes Amy different than the first 2?

Quote: GWAE

I never understood why there were different review rules on the last 2 minutes. Why are those 2 minutes Amy different than the first 2?

I could be wrong, but I thought it was because you could get one or more extra time-outs without being charged for them, or in some cases give an unintended time-out to the other team once they were out of them during the challenge.

Quote: kewlj

I saw it. Bad call. Bad calls used to be part of the game. Now it's a mess. Certain things are reviewable, certain not. I mean if the object is to get the calls right, why are certain things not reviewable??

I think the main reason is, something is not supposed to be reviewable unless it is something that has a specific "standard" against which it can be judged. For example, whether or not someone stepped out of bounds can be determined clearly by a replay; on the other hand, the difference between "pass interference" and "incidental contact" is strictly an interpretation, so one official's judgment should not be challenged by another's looking at a replay.

Did you know that there is a rule saying that determining whether or not a field goal is good is not reviewable if the ball passes higher than the tops of the uprights? Whether it passed inside or outside of an upright is clear, so it is reviewable, but determining whether it passed over the top of the upright or not is a judgment, so it is not.

Quote: kewlj

I saw it. Bad call. Bad calls used to be part of the game. Now it's a mess. Certain things are reviewable, certain not. I mean if the object is to get the calls right, why are certain things not reviewable??

Agreed ! No guarantees, 50 yds is a long way to go, but UNC should have had the opportunity ESPECIALLY on something that was so clear and "indisputable".

Quote: SOOPOO

For those who didn't see it, with over a minute remaining, and 3 time outs left, UNC clearly recovered an onsides kick at midfield. Too bad, a flag comes flying, they were offsides...... Except they weren't, not even close! Offsides on kickoffs is a rare penalty call, one which the refs tend to not call unless the offender is WAY offsides. But some ref decided to make believe a player was offsides. They work all year to get into this game. They play 60 hard fought minutes and then a ref just makes up a call out of thin air. No repercussions. Rant over.

The ACC has some of the best basketball refs, used to anyhow. But football, they still lag behind it seems. This is the same conference which suspended a crew for two games for their mis-management of the Miami vs. Duke run back giving the game to Miami a few weeks ago. I assume not the same crew. There was no way even a naked blind eye would call that offsides.

Quote: kewlj

I saw it. Bad call. Bad calls used to be part of the game. Now it's a mess. Certain things are reviewable, certain not. I mean if the object is to get the calls right, why are certain things not reviewable??

Personally, I am not a big fan of reviews in any sport. It takes away from the natural moment of the game.

Me either. They should be done away with altogether. To me it's a product of something almost like a mass hysteria with sports. We've convinced ourselves that it is really important who wins the games. I'm not talking about it mattering to the fans. Replay only makes sense if you think it matters in the grand scheme of things.

I like sports and I like betting on them. If you wanna be a crazed fan of your team that's cool. But the end result of a bad call is that one crazed fan base is upset and one is relieved. All part of the fun. It's a wash and it has no effect on the world other than that.

So why not just let the games play out and enjoy the drama of it all, since that's all it consists of anyway? And save ourselves the tedium and wasted time of watching refs watch videos.

I had Stanford to win the title at 80-1 so I was not happy with the call, as it killed that bet. Still don't want replays. Could just as easily have been saved by a bad call.