Possible bias of conference-affiliated refs
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College Football Today
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September 21, 2006 |
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| Possible bias of conference-affiliated
officials concerns fans, teams |
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The question inevitably is at the forefront. When college football fans enter a stadium for a nonconference game, "You always ask, 'Where are the officials from?' " said Mike Gottfried, an ex-NCAA Division I-A coach and ESPN analyst.
College football officials are hired and trained by conferences. They work games under those conference labels. So when officiating comes under fire, as it has for Oregon's 34-33 home victory Saturday against Oklahoma, concerns over bias are raised. "I don't think there's any question when you're going on the road, and I don't care where it is or who you are, you run into some of those issues," Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said in a teleconference.
Pooling officials regionally or nationally, thus removing conference ties, could ease some of the issues, according to Carr and other college football insiders. "Certainly it's an argument that needs to be explored, and if they could do it, I think it would be one of the real positive things that we could do to
make the game, from an intersectional standpoint, fairer," Carr said. Up for debate this week is whether Oklahoma got a fair shake. Generally, for non-conference games such as the Sooners-Ducks, the visiting team has its league officials working, which is set up in the
game contract between schools.
"The general notion has been the visiting school has been going into hostile territory. They won't have the fan base the home team does. It's sort of like, at least give us an officiating crew we're familiar with", said Dave Parry, supervisor of officials for the Big Ten.
But the Pacific-10, of which Oregon is a member, has a policy that its officials work games in its home stadiums. Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said Tuesday that the Sooners would consider canceling their game at Washington in 2008 if the Pac-10 doesn't change that policy. OU President David Boren on Monday
asked the Big 12 to pursue a change in the policy.
From USA TODAY
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