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Collegiate Instant Replay No Longer Using Your Grandma’s TV

Mar 5, 2010, 10:00 PM UTC

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Programming note: There will be no TSB posts this weekend, but we will resume regular posting on Monday.

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â†µâ†µSEC officials did not have a good year in 2009. Ask any Arkansas fan.â†µBefore you do so, make sure he’s strapped to a table and there aren’tâ†µany children within a five mile radius, but go ahead and ask if you needâ†µevidence here. â†µ

â†µâ†µYou probably don’t, however, since you know that the SEC admittedâ†µerror from the crew that did the Arkansas-Florida game, suspendedâ†µthem, retroactively announced that flagsâ†µin the Georgia-LSU game were ridiculous, failed to call Terrenceâ†µCody for taking his helmet off after he blocked a potentiallyâ†µgame-winning Tennessee field goal, gave Florida aâ†µphantom touchdown against Mississippi State, and did not give LSU anâ†µobvious interception in their game against Alabama. In all of this,â†µSN’s Matt Hayes provided the closest thing to a defense: “SECâ†µofficials just bad, not crooked.” A ringing endorsement, that.â†µ

â†µâ†µThe last two are the worst because both of them were reviewed and theâ†µcalls were still wrong. People sitting at home watched the replay twentyâ†µtimes, saw it was an incorrect call twenty times, and were then told notâ†µto trust their lying eyes. It was almost like the guy at home with highâ†µdefinition was getting a better view of replay than the guy in the stadium at the booth. Whatâ†µsay you, national coordinator of football officials Dave Parry?â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“Sometimes a guy at home with high definition was getting aâ†µâ‡¥better view of replay than the guy in the stadium at theâ†µâ‡¥booth.”â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µWha?â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥High-definition televisions are coming to instant replay thisâ†µâ‡¥football season in three or four conferences, including the SEC.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µYou mean to say that big time college football couldn’t shell out forâ†µHDTVs until it was definitively proven that attempting to rely on aâ†µblack and white RCA television from 1956 might not be the world’s bestâ†µidea? â†µ

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â†µWhat other blindingly obvious revelations have you come toâ†µrecently, national coordinator of football officials Dave Parry?â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Some conferences will do more training of replay officials thisâ†µâ‡¥off-season, Parry said. “We’re finding people are less forgivingâ†µâ‡¥for the replay official’s errors than an on-field official. We’re stillâ†µâ‡¥relatively new at this. We’ve tweaked it every year.”â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µArgh argh argh argh argh. This is because they get to look at theâ†µplay twenty times and sometimes they do crazy things like arbitrarilyâ†µdeclare the pylon to be part of the field. This is because replayâ†µofficials are usually decrepit former officials who are evidently veryâ†µconfused these days. There is a certain amount of tolerance people haveâ†µfor difficult split-second decisions. That tolerance disappears when anyâ†µidiot with a 54-inch plasma screen can clearly see something is wrong but theâ†µpeople in charge of things can’t. â†µ

â†µâ†µBut, hey, they finally shelled out a few thousand dollars to keep theâ†µbrain hemorrhages down this year. So they’ve got that going forâ†µthem.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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