SEC Officials Coordinator: “This Is Not Broke.” Rest of Earth: “Really?”
Hey, have you heard about this little refereeing crisis the SEC is having? Are you fed up? Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?
Well, it’s a good thing you’re not the SEC’s coordinator of football officials, Rogers Redding. He’s got to be all level-headed and diplomatic about this. And by that I mean he’s completely delusional.
Redding would not comment on the SEC’s new rules. But he did say the league officiating, overall, has been on par with other seasons. The league coaches have cast a bad image on officials by speaking out so much publicly.
“This is not broke,” Redding said of SEC officiating. “It doesn’t need fixing. . . . I think we’ve had a really good season so far.”
Redding notes that with all the league games on TV — including a huge amount of national TV exposure with ESPN and CBS contracts — officials are under much more scrutiny.
“It comes with the territory,” he said. “There’s going to be more scrutiny (in the SEC than most leagues).”
Yes, sir, there will be more scrutiny. And it’s the sort of scrutiny that will come up with this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this. But you know what must happen for “scrutiny” to find those blown calls? Referees must blow those calls. And if the number and magnitude of those blown calls doesn’t seem to bother the SEC — if this season constitutes anything approaching “really good” from an objective viewpoint of the calls on the field — then it’s not the refereeing system that’s “broke.”
It’s the SEC.
SportingNews.com
11/10/9
Magnolia Tribune
