Don’t think the Big East won’t try. No conference likes to be completely embarrassed by poor, onesided officiating that has everyone turning a jaundiced eye that way. It’s one thing for the Big East to try and gloss over what happened when the announcers during the game and even commentators right afterwards saying things on the air.
It’s something completely different when everyone is putting it in print as well.
10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:
a. The officiating crew in the Pittsburgh-West Virginia game robbed Pitt, and very nearly caused the wrong team to win the game. Absolutely robbed Pitt. That crew shouldn’t sleep for a long, long time. The two fourth-quarter holding calls on Pitt were the biggest phantom calls I’ve seen in such a big spot in a long time.
Dennis Dodd, CBS Sportsline (Dec. 3 entry):
It looked like Big East officials were trying their hardest to get West Virginia through the Pittsburgh ordeal. The two holding calls on the Panthers receiver — the last one negated a touchdown run — were ridiculous.
Jack Bogacyzk, Charleston Daily Mail:
Even the Big East’s zebra crew seemed to want to pave WVU’s way to the national title game in the Superdome. A pair of holding calls on Pitt sophomore receiver Oderick Turner were particularly odoriferous, consider where and when they were flagged.
“Hey, we knew coming into the game,” said Pitt senior offensive tackle Mike McGlynn, “that the Big East, you know, they were going to try to get a team into the national championship and … they tried.”
The Mountaineers fumbled the ball away three times and failed to take advantage of two highly dubious holding calls on Pitt receiver Oderick Turner that helped keep the game close.
Jacob E. Osterhout, SI On Campus:
We’d like to recognize the Big East officiating crew of the Pittsburgh-West Virginia game for calling two of the worst holding penalties ever recorded.
Matthew Zemek, CollegeFootballNews.com on FoxSports.com:
Well, if the Big East officiating crew hadn’t made a number of highly suspect holding calls on plays when West Virginia corners simply didn’t get off their blocks against Panther receivers, Pitt would have salted away this win much earlier in the evening.
A McCoy touchdown run — earned by a beautiful juke move in the open field on a 3rd-and-5 play from the Mountaineer 13 — was mysteriously called back on the kind of play that simply doesn’t get called at the FBS level. Nearly a quarter later, with Pittsburgh trying to hang on just before the three-minute mark of regulation, a superbly-executed reverse mini-option sprung McCoy for a first down on a 3rd-and-5. However, the yellow laundry emerged again, as a holding penalty was called on the same Pittsburgh receiver (Oderick Turner) who was wrongly flagged for holding on McCoy’s touchdown run.
Just for good measure, the Big East officials punished a Pittsburgh defensive back for celebrating after White’s last-ditch 4th and 17 pass sailed incomplete with 1:34 left in regulation. But by then, possession had already changed hands, and the Panthers finally ran the clock out on the Mountaineers and their national title hopes.
I’m not saying we will ever hear or read anything about this. The fact is, that officiating has been horrible throughout college football this year. The ACC had officials missing whether a FG was good. The Pac-10 has long been inept. You can bet there are complaints with Big 11 and Big 12 officials as well.
The Big East though (and these are only the games that I am thinking of off the top of my head) — the UConn-Temple game (officials on the field were MAC, but the replay official who “confirmed” no catch by the Temple player was Big East); Pitt-Rutgers, the offensive pass interference against Oderick Turner; the Notre Dame-Stanford game had 4 plays reversed by replay in one game — has really lowered the bar this year.
I am not willing to say that the Big East officials were acting under any orders from the Big East to get the Mountaineers into the BCS Championship game. I really don’t believe that. I do think that the official (or officials) in this game, though, were way too easily swayed/influenced by the home crowd/location.
John Soffey is the Big East’s Director of Football Officiating. He has work to do, and the Big East has some serious damage control. Pitt won, so there isn’t that sort of complete outrage. The coaches in the conference, though, are not going to let this go. The way the game and the season was officiated had to put a scare into all of them for future big games. It’s fairness and believing that they will be treated fairly. Right now, that’s in question.
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Did Oderick Turner rape some officials kid? That guy has been hammered on 3 of the worst calls i’ve seen in my life, and all were at highly critical times in the game.
The worst part to me, on the run at 3.30 to salt the game away, was that one official was standing 5 feet away S-T-A-R-I-N-G at Oderick block the guy clean the entire time, and didn’t even think of pulling his flag. Several seconds after the plays over a flag flies in from the official 20 YARDS DOWN FIELD. HOW THE FUCK YOU DO GET A BETTER VIEW THAN THE GUY IN PERFECT POSITION 2 YARDS AWAY?
After the Rutgers game, i was going to post that the refs life needs to be looked into to make sure there’s no NBA type shit going on – but I erased the post because i thought better of it, and didn’t want people thinking i’m insane. After this game, i’m dead serious. The big east needs to hire private investigators and look into the lives of some of these officials. This is no joke. Besides being unfair to the kids, there are literally millions of dollars at stake in these games. These officials need to have their lives ripped apart and make sure there aren’t any alterior motives. I can’t explain what i saw, and neither can anyone else in the nation, saturday night. It was that bizarre/awful. Some refs don’t want that? Fine, quit. Go ref middle school. We’ll find someone competent.
But to think that the BE commissioner would specifically pressure referees to be biased towards one team in a certain game would bring all of that hard work crashing down in an instant if exposed – and I don’t believe anyone at the Commissioner’s level of employment is that stupid.
Now, Stuart’s suggestion that an official would be on the take re: gambling is viable I suppose, after all we saw it in the NBA – but then again, after seeing what transpired just a few months ago – with the associated shame, embarrassment and jail time with the ref involved – again makes me think that is pretty far fetched.
No, I just think the refs in the BE are not professional, or well trained, enough to referee at this level of play. But its a big problem and certainly needs to be addressed forcefully.
Those that run the big east did not want Pitt to win that game.
I totally agree with you that the powers that be was promoting WVU to make it to the big dance. ALthough I don’t think that the officials were specifically told how to call the game, anybody with a fully functional BRAIN who watched that game would agree that the officials hade a hidden agenda going into that game because they knew a trip to the BCS Championship was at stake.
Two teams that should give up ANY future complaints/bitching regarding bad calls are Connecticut and West Virginia (and to a lesser extent…Rutgers). Those teams were the beneficiaries of some of the most blatant and erroneous calls since the inception of the Big East.
and did anyone notice that those calls werent on 1st and 10, but when pitt did something good like the TD run or the first down? dont forget, the play after the 2nd holding call on Turner was BLATANT pass interference on wvu that was never called. on the replay you could clearly see the guy pulling on our WRs jersey. disgraceful calls, it was obvious that the big east wanted wvu in the NC game
other than the Pitt WVU fiasco…. can think of a couple really bad calls in the past
1. Big 12 officials granting Colorado an extra down….yeah that’s right an extra down within the 10 yard red zone….those refs were sanctioned by the conference..
2. Nebraska Penn State…actually two calls both favoring JoePA…the mysterious foot was in the end zone catch for Penn St. and the out of bounds catch by Nebraska in the end zone that clearly was in bounds
In regards to checking out gambling activity (if any) of the refs….check out this tidbit I gleaned from the Marshall News Ledger.com “It (Big 12) was the first (conference) to contract the services of Las Vegas Sports Consultants as part of its $60,000 gambling prevention and detection program to study the movements of betting lines and any suspicious play”….so some conferences are taking biased officiating very seriously…saddly the Big East doesn’t seem to be one of them…but this is certainly an avenue the Big East should pursue.
Also as I understand it….SEC replay booth refs review every play and can contact the on field refs to review critical plays…does that help level the playing field ? I think so
Mike Francesca of Mike and the Mad Dog:
He said something to the effect that the refs did everything within their power to give the game to WVU, but thank god Pitt won. He added that Wannstedt should have had Tranghese on the phone before the end of the 4th Quarter asking for an explanation. He also said the two holding calls on Turner and then the non-call pass interference were “obscene” and that he can’t remember worse officiating ever.
Tony Kornheiser of PTI again added that the officials did everything in their power to give the game to WVU and is surprised Wannstedt didn’t try to poke their eyes out with his crutches.
what i guess he didnt mention was the ticky-tacky personal foul call on pitt on 3rd down and goal to give wvu a fresh set of downs and their only TD. your basic makeup call. but that was when the officials were bad, but at least they were fair with their calls. the 2nd half was unquestionably biased, which is what everyone is angry about
They all look pretty suspicious to me…
It doesn’t matter were the ref is from. I now plenty of people from Pittsburgh who are WVU fans. Heck, more than half of WVU’s team is from Western PA. Whoever the ref is that made the phantom calls (and we will find out), should be fined and barred from officiating on any level!
HAIL TO PITT
you were right about ONE thing. We’ll be recruting our ass off and maybe they’ll be some scrubs lefts for you! Who would want to go to a school where their biggest major is “public crying 215” and “How to lose the big one.” How many National Championships does WVU have? Oh yeah NONE. Go back, burn your couch as you get your ass kicked by the SOONERS! GO SOONERS!
HAIL TO PITT
Hahahaha, look at Lois A. Deblois in that picture of Big East bigwigs (the link “Ouch” posted)! She looks like when Will Farrell would play Janet Reno on Saturday Night Live!!
Oh, here in Tampa I ran into two Bulls fans complaining that Pitt shouldn’t have beaten WVU because it made the Big East (and in particular them since they also beat WVU) look bad!
I responded by calling them bushleague 1AA/Conference USA homers. When they gave me funny looks for saying that, I realized that neither of them were probably Bulls fans in the 1AA/Conference USA days…. in fact they’d probably only been familiar with bigtime college football for about 2 months.
So then I just told them that their team actually being successfull makes the Big East look worse than Pitt beating WVU ever could. Then they shut up.
Seriously, I’m sure there are similar newbie college football fans in Connecticut and Cincy annoying the shit out of everyone there too.
I was at the 76 game, the one that was befoe you were wiped up off the abortionist floor. Have fun in Arizona, hopefully the’ll be some queers for you to have plug your butt for you, you like that corn cob action right? Like I said, those Sooners will give you another crushing blow…you know all about that don’t you?
How’s Pac-Man’s career working out for him?
Let’s live in the present then if you don’t want to compare national championships, let’s compare the final score of the last game we both played…I thought so.
Glad to see some WVU fans are off suicide watch and capable of coming up with “witty” remarks like the ones you are throwing out. It’s also good to know you are well aware of the score we beat you by. Keep up the good work!
Cost of one ticket to the Fiesta Bowl + Plane Fare + Hotel + food = $2500
Cost of Pitt BEATING wvu in the Backyard Brawl, in morgantown, when they’re ranked #2, and knocking them out of the National Championship Game! ==== PRICELESS!!!!!!!!
typical wvu fan and CANT READ MY POST at 2:08 where i mention the makeup personal foul call that pitt got that gave them 3 pts as opposed to wvu’s 7.
I think that there should be a FORMAL investigation into last nights horrendous officiating. When the entire ESPN crew question the “dubious” penalties called after the action it calls into question, what exactly those officials were looking at. The final straw was the celebration call. Give me a break, a 4 TD underdog team doesn’t get a chance to celebrate the “greatest ” upset in college ball history. It was pretty obvious from the national perspective that the BE officials were doing their best to put WVU into the National Championship game. How can anyone do this to these kids that played the game of their lives. Pitt should have been able to enjoy their victory without such blatant interference from the B.E. Officiating crew. If this was the NFL, there would be a lot of apologies coming from the league office about these ludicrous after the fact penalties.
In looking at the blogs across the nation, it was pretty obvious that the fans of all schools questioned the integrity of the Big East. Not a good thing especially on national TV.\
I am very disappointed in the quality of the Big East Officiating this year.
PS: I would have sent this to Mike, but he doesn’t appear to have an email address, please feel free to pass this along.
HAIL TO PITT
Blow me you toothless cross-eyed bitch
“Pitt didn’t do anything good by beating us. I’m not saying that they should have thrown the game, but it’s not like they beat someone in a bowl game or anything. What they basically did was deny their neighbors access to a national championship.”
I can’t even come up with a retort to that logic.
HAIL TO PITT
“Blow me you toothless cross-eyed bitch.”
You get an ‘A’ for clarity in writing and an ‘A’ in your use of descriptive metaphors. Need a little work on punctuation though.
Ernest Hemingway would be proud.
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