The Saturday that was:  Conspiracies

this time, turn down the sound, so that you aren’t influenced by Verne (who has no business even being in the booth) and Danielson (who is certain he is always right and in his efforts to tell you so, sometimes misses the trees while inspecting the veins on the leaves).

The penalty is not being called on the hit. A defender is obviously allowed to throw down a blocker who is attempting to block him on the play. That was clean as can be. The flag was thrown because Sheppard appeared to taunt the player he had just thrown down. Danielson completely missed it because he was too busy ranting about the call. Verne missed it because he misses everything, including who is carrying the ball on any given play, who makes the tackle, whether a first down is achieved, etc., but I digress….

Was the unsportsmanlike call on the taunting a good one? No. Sheppard appeared to just wave his arm at the player and mutter something. But it is clear that the flag only comes in immediately following the act. It was a judgment call by the ref. A bad one, but hey, we’re used to that.

You don’t hear Florida fans crying about the no call when Mallett, under pressure, retreated 15 yards directly behind center and then grounded the ball to avoid a sack. He was not outside the tackles and the ball did not reach the line of scrimmage. Bad call. It happens.

Blaming losses on the refs is what losers do. Arky converted 3 of 15 3rd downs (I believe). Yet, it was the referees calls on consecutive 1st and 10 plays which cost them the game? Mallett was absolutely horrendous throwing the ball all day, missing wide open receivers. Arky couldn’t convert our numerous gift-wrapped fumbles into TDs. Arky went soft and tried to sit on the lead (would you expect anything less from a slug like Petrino?).

Let’s assume neither penalty was called. Without the PI call, it is 2nd and 10 from midfield. Would that have been impossible to convert? We were moving the ball pretty well at that point. What about the other call? Without the personal foul, it would have been 2nd and 9 from the Arkansas 20. Again, not a catastrophic situation. Neither call saved the Gators from a potential 3rd and 25 or anything close to it.

We played a poor game and none of the 7 fumbles bounced our way (4 from us, 3 from Arkansas), that’s just football. But to lessen the victory and call it a conspiracy?!

Now, was the call god

This season has done bad things to your usual decorum and sense of humor, Kyle. Good luck going forward.

there are just a lot of people happy to kick a dog when he’s down.

i mean a) ignore us because we are wrong or b) understand there is a massive context from last year on a series of issues we are discussing.

But it seems there is a big pile of people that have been waiting for CMR to have a bad year. I never knew how much jealousy was out there. Good to be on this side in a way.

The complaints (at least from myself, I can’t speak for everyone else) about the penalties have nothing to do with a “horribly unfair advantage.” I know you are being sarcastic with your statement, but it missed the point. The issue is consistency and the problems that arise from the officiating crews’ inconsistencies. The SEC should give no fanbase (UGA or otherwise) a reason, no matter how paltry, to complain about these penalties. The lack of will by the SEC in their officiating to draw a line (whether it be Tebow’s antics or a helmet non-call) with the unsportsmanlike conduct calls is creating an issue with perception. As was pointed out by Brando after UGA’s game with LSU, that officiating crew was walking into something they don’t want to see, and that had to do with race. I don’t believe that the call against AJ Green had to do with his race, but Brando’s point was that if they don’t get their act together and draw a clear line between what is or isn’t an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, then these questions will arise. The SEC needs to make sure that no fan of any team, at any given moment, is handed (on a silver platter in most instances) the right to call into question any bias, racial prejudices, or anything else. It’s downright shameful that a league like the SEC can’t get their officiating in line and we have to have these sorts of discussions. If they were doing their jobs, it wouldn’t be necessary to bring up these non-calls, and it wouldn’t be necessary for you to defend them. You should be just as upset with the officials for giving anyone the ability to call it into question. I agree that it may not have altered the game, and I believed the same about AJ Green’s call when we lost to LSU, but these calls should be non-issues, regardless to which degree the are an issue at all.

. . . if two consecutive SEC directors of officials were Auburn University alumni, and Alabama seemed to be getting the short end of the stick on judgment calls, wouldn’t you as a Crimson Tide fan at least have some questions?

The current SEC director of officials is a Georgia Tech alumnus. He was handpicked by his predecessor, another Georgia Tech alumnus. Hatred of all things Georgia is inculcated as part of the curriculum at the Georgia Institute of Technology. (Ask a Georgia Tech man, “What’s the good word?” and he will not reply by praising Georgia Tech, but by condemning—-literally, condemning, in the religious sense—-Georgia.)

If two league directors of officials in a row had spent their undergraduate years learning to issue a knee-jerk declaration that they wanted your alma mater to burn for all eternity, wouldn’t you question a few calls that went against you?