Bix XII Says: Calls “Technically” Correct
filed in Big XII on Nov.14, 2007
The short story: The referee did not make a “wrong” call. What he did was exercise his right to “discretion” in the speed in which he placed the ball initially, and on when the clock started after the penalty. It COULD have started on the snap after the penalty, or he could have blown the whistle when he was fully out of the way, etc.
Also, the reason why it took him longer to spot the ball and blow the whistle than it took for the kicking team to set up is that he was being “consistent” with his timing of ball placement, like the rules state. Never mind that it is common place for refs to hurry up that timing towards the end of games, and the ref personally took away the effort of the team in the last few minutes. Wonderful guy. Way to let the game be decided on the field.
Basically, the guy took every turn he could to screw the Buffs while staying within the letter of the law. Whether or not you think the Buffs deserved to win, they DID deserve to take the game into OT. Wonderful refereeing by the ex Nebraska QB.
Links with good breakdowns of this:
Kyle Ringo’s Blog
Neil Woelk’s Rant (I mean Column)
A nice vent by Sunday Morning QB (Excellent Site, BTW)
Hooray for hair splitting! Get some rest Buffs, you got NU coming up and Wheatley has a broken foot!
Dammit.
Related posts:
November 14th, 2007 on 3:39 pm
The officials call was not the problem. After the game CU’s long-snapper told KOA’s Charles Johnson in the locker room that he thought the delay of game penalty was a dead-ball foul (meaning the clock would stop until snapped again). That was obviously not the case. Instead the clock was to start when the referee blew his whistle after placement. Someone on the coaching staff should have known this and communicated it to the rest of the team.
Furthermore, CU could have avoided this whole thing if a better decision had been made. Had the received made a move towards the sideline and gotten out of bounds they would not have had to rush the field-goal unit onto the field. If you’ll recall he made his move to the middle of the field.
While it makes for some great conspiray theory…the ex-husker ref was not the reason the Buffs are now in a must-win situation for a bowl game.
November 14th, 2007 on 3:40 pm
The officials call was not the problem. After the game CU’s long-snapper told KOA’s Charles Johnson in the locker room that he thought the delay of game penalty was a dead-ball foul (meaning the clock would stop until snapped again). That was obviously not the case. Instead the clock was to start when the referee blew his whistle after placement. Someone on the coaching staff should have known this and communicated it to the rest of the team.
Furthermore, CU could have avoided this whole thing if a better decision had been made. Had the received made a move towards the sideline and gotten out of bounds they would not have had to rush the field-goal unit onto the field. If you’ll recall he made his move to the middle of the field.
While it makes for some great conspiray theory…the ex-husker ref was not the reason the Buffs are now in a must-win situation for a bowl game.
November 14th, 2007 on 3:51 pm
My biggest problem is with the decision by Cody to throw to a guy on third down that was not past the first down marker. With that little amount of time, you have to make sure he’s either past the marker or that it is easy for him to get out of bounds. Poor decision. The way the Buffs played that second half, they didn’t deserve to win the game anyway. This is the second game this year (see Florida State) where the offense looked terrible for a long stretch with a bunch of three and outs and then is able to move the ball when it comes down towards the end. I know that some of that can be explained by the defenses playing more of a “prevent”, but why didn’t the offense have that fire between halftime and the second to last drive? Bottom line is that Iowa State made adjustments at half and we didn’t. Our offense is looking very predictable. Wait a minute, is Shawn Watson back calling the plays?
November 14th, 2007 on 5:26 pm
Clete Blakeman took points off the board and nullified scholar-athletes efforts. What a great call by a former Nebraska QB. Shows you what he learned about sportsmanship at Nebraska.
November 14th, 2007 on 9:28 pm
Exactly my point. I don’t care how good or bad the buffs played, or who “deserved” to win the game. I care that the refs obviously used all the power at their fingertips to negate the actions on the field
November 15th, 2007 on 5:33 am
Good points. I doubt Hawk would blame the refs since it was his team that gave up up 31 points to ISU in 2 quarters!! Go Buffs! Beat Small Red!!
November 15th, 2007 on 9:20 am
Come next friday, the ref will make no difference. NU has woke up on offense, CU has a lousy offense..
This one will be a blowout…
November 15th, 2007 on 12:13 pm
redisgreat,
Big talk for a fan whose team’s own D is widely considered this year as “lousy”. How about crappy? or ugly? or just plain bad? or my favorite term of late, garbage?
The only reason to call the NU D “black-shirts” this year are the shoe prints left by all the opponent QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs while piling up yardage and scores.
Sure CU O has had moments to forget this year, but there have been flashes of brilliance. Sometimes it’s a series, or a quarter, or a half; and the rare instance this year, a game. I’d hardly call them lousy though.
November 15th, 2007 on 1:01 pm
Come on dude, they’re playing daddy ball at CU, that’s no good…
November 16th, 2007 on 8:54 am
I’m not sure how that’s relevant to the team being lousy seeing as how Hawk wasn’t related to James Cox last year and it was worse record.
However, there probably were some times when Hawk should have taken his son aside and gone over an error made (i.e. interception, poor pass selection, one as a result of another), but didn’t because of the relationship and Hawk may be more inclined to do that if it were not someone related. Of course I’m only speculating, but family dynamic MAY have played a minor part this season.
I’m willing to give this team time and am pleased with this season so far compared to last year.