When the Atlantic Coast Conference announced a few weeks ago that it would experiment with instant replay for the 2005 football season, one thought raced through my mind: “It’s about time!” The ACC’s system of instant replay will be based on the format the Big Ten used last season. Certainly, this system of instant replay isn’t perfect, but it will be a welcome sight in a conference that has been home to some of the worst officiating in college football for several years. For years coaches, fans, and players have suffered through the agony of watching the men in black and white botch several clear cut calls and now they finally have something to ease that pain.
In the Big Ten’s system a technical adviser would watch the game from the press box and notify officials with a pager if they saw a questionable call. Play would then be stopped while the adviser reviewed the call using video from the television feed. Under this system, the technical adviser is the only person that can overturn a call, the officials on the field are not allowed. Hard fouls such as blocks in the back and facemasks, and some other judgment calls like false starts are not eligible for review under this system.
It’s a well known fact around the league that referee Jack Childress and company have made some pretty big mistakes over the years and hopefully instant replay will help to rectify some of those. It’s very easy to blame the officials for determining the outcome of a game, but it’s an inescapable fact that football officials in the ACC have blown big-time calls far too often. One example came when Florida State traveled to “The Swamp” to face the Florida Gators in 2003. Florida State won the game 38-34, but not after several controversial calls were made by the officials. After the game, ACC officials conducted a thorough review of the officiating and discovered six errors were made during the game by Childress and his crew.
Instant replay couldn’t have come at a better time for the ACC, because officials were just making too many costly mistakes. The instant replay system can’t eliminate all the mistakes, but it will certainly minimize them. ACC Commissioner John Swofford must be commended for realizing that there is a huge problem with the football officiating in his conference and for trying to remedy it. “Everyone connected with college football -- whether you are a fan, coach, player or official -- wants a correct ruling on the field and we believe that this is another step in the right direction of enhancing the quality of officiating and fair play," Swofford said in a statement.
Finally, I’d just like to say there will always be blown calls in games and unfortunately that’s just a fact in all sports. In sports people are constantly chasing the elusive idea of allowing the players on the field determine the outcome, but we all know that can’t happen 100 percent of the time. As much as fans love to jeer officials by calling them zebras, at the end of the day they are still human like you and me.
