Arkansas and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Referees

It's time we talk about something everyone is talking about: officiating

Dec 01, 2020

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Now, let’s dive into everyone’s favorite topic: SEC officiating!

It’s no secret that Arkansas fans have been less than enthusiastic about the decision making of SEC referees this year. From the shambolic display at Auburn which directly resulted in a loss to the masterclass of officiating at home against LSU (which wasn’t responsible for the loss, in my opinion), we’ve definitely had a rough go when it comes to controversial calls.

It’s led to many Arkansas fans cursing the Birmingham office, and crying out for some kind of fairness in the sport we all love. Is it really that bad though? Are the SEC officials out to get us? How deep does this conspiracy go? Let’s dive in and find out.

The Conspiracy

There isn’t a conspiracy. It’s nowhere near as fun as if there was a conspiracy, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I just don’t think there’s a cabal of mustache-twirling villains in Birmingham who hate the Hogs. It’s Hanlon’s Razor: “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” There is no smoke filled room where SEC games are decided beforehand, and referees are not rigging the games. However, Arkansas fans have legitimate grievances, and I think those are worth discussing.

Auburn

The Auburn play was really bad. In case you’ve forgotten, with 30 seconds left in the game, Auburn’s quarterback Bo Nix spiked the ball to stop the clock— except he didn’t. Nix had trouble with a bad snap and fumbled the ball, recovered, and then spiked the ball backwards which is considered a fumble in almost every instance of backwards ball movement that I’ve ever seen. Joe Foucha recovered the fumble, but the referees decided that it was actually a spike, that the clock stopped, and that Joe Foucha’s immediate recovery fo the ball was actually not immediate. Auburn retained possession and kicked the game winning field goal to prevent Sam Pittman from getting a signature win over a ranked team. It was bad!

It was so bad that we heard from former NFL offensive linemen, former professional referees for NBC AND Fox, sports writers, and Dick freaking Vitale of all people about the badness of the call. I was mad, and I’m sure you were too. Then, we got a slap in the face with what essentially amounted to a non-response from the SEC:

The explanation was lacking then, and it’s lacking now, but unfortunately, sometimes the ball doesn’t bounce your way, and officials blow calls. We take our lumps and move on from a tough loss. Until…

Ole Miss

This play didn’t even involve the Hogs. Two weeks later, those rotten Auburn Tigers faced Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss Rebels, and they pulled a fast one in that game too. After a Jerion Ealy touchdown, the Rebels held a 28-27 lead over Auburn. On the ensuing kickoff, Auburn running back Shaun Shivers watched a squib kick roll into the endzone for a touchback— except he didn’t. Shivers briefly made contact with the ball, making it a live ball, and the ball was recovered in the endzone by an Ole Miss defender for what should’ve been called a touchdown. There was no review, the play was ruled unchallengable, and Auburn was given possession of the ball. Bo Nix hit Seth Williams with a 58 yard touchdown pass, and the game was over.

Lane Kiffin ended up speaking to the SEC Offices, but apparently was not at liberty to divulge what they told him. He made his opinion on the no-call heard with a simple retweet:

That retweet ended up costing Kiffin a cool $25,000, and of course, didn’t change the outcome of a game that the Rebels should’ve won.

It was frustrating to watch as a neutral party who had received a similar performance from referees against the same team, and led to many wondering if the SEC wanted to just gift Auburn wins in a year where they seemed to be struggling. Frustrating as it was though, we simply needed to move on, and realize that we still had a lot of year left, and that officiating disasters wouldn’t happen again, as we had used up our fair share. Well…

LSU

When Marc Curles was announced as the head referee for the 2020 edition of the Battle for the Golden Boot, I audibly groaned. Curles was responsible for the fiasco in Florida in 2009, and has had some other controversial rulings in his career. Unfortunately, he would continue his favorite pasttime by blowing a couple of calls in the LSU game. An indisputable LSU fumble was ruled to not be a fumble (that didn’t matter, as they would turn it over on the same drive). The worst call in the game though came with the ejection of Jalen Catalon for targeting. Catalon made a routine, good tackle on an LSU receiver, and made no head to head contact as he led with his shoulder. Marc Curles saw differently, and Catalon was ruled out, not only for the remainder of the LSU game, but also for the first half of the Missouri game (which was eventually postponed to this week).

Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek appealed to the SEC offices to reinstate Catalon, but the SEC ruled that the suspension couldn’t be appealed. Catalon, the best player on the Arkansas defense, will indeed have to miss the first half of the Missouri game. Some “fans” questioned coach Sam Pittman’s committment to fighting for his players, and that was met with one of the best rebukes I’ve seen from an Arkansas coach. Unfortunately, twitter burns don’t reinstate players.

It’s a Big Club, and You Ain’t In It

I’ve actually entertained this idea for quite a while. There are blue blood programs in the SEC, and there are red headed step children. We aren’t blue bloods, and blue bloods get all the calls, right? Well, maybe not. I spoke with a couple of my former SB Nation colleagues who happen to be fans of Big Boy Schools™, and this is what they had to say.

First, I talked to Zachary Junda from LSU’s SB Nation site And the Valley Shook:

LSU fans love to play the victim, and to be fair they have been given the shaft plenty of times— see Patrick Peterson being ruled out of bounds in the 2009 Alabama game and the atrocity that was the 7OT game against Texas A&M. With that said, I don’t think LSU fans think that officials rig games against them. They just think officials are woefully incompetent at their jobs. That’s a worse feeling! I’d rather constantly be in the crosshairs of some secret scheme than just say “nope this is just how it is.” LSU fans don’t think the SEC tries to screw them...now Saints fans, most of whom are LSU fans, KNOW the NFL tries to screw them so they get to have their cake and eat it too.

Next, I talked to Brent Taylor from Alabama’s SB Nation site Roll ‘Bama Roll:

I mean, I'm pretty sure every every football fan in the cosmos is dead certain that the refs hate their team and love their rivals.
In our case, it's OBVIOUSLY true, as we all know what Auburn's been gifted this year (as well as the last decade).
Seriously though, SEC officiating is horrendous, and the way they double down with a half-apology-but-not-really Tweet every Monday morning is just embarrassing.
Now, I can’t speak for other large schools, but I do know that from 2009 to 2017, Alabama ranked dead last in the nation in called opponent penalties multiple times and was consistently in the bottom 1/4 in that regard. The Tide didn't usually get called for too many penalties, but their opponents NEVER got called. This is off the top of my head, but I believe there was a stretch starting in the 2015 season and didn't end until some point in 2017 where Alabama's opponents didn't get called for a single offensive holding penalty.
You're telling me that with an entire defensive line of 1st and 2nd round draft picks in 2016, NOBODY got beat and tried to hold?
No, there's just that unconscious bias of "these little guys are already getting beat up, we don't need to penalize them too."
That said, a bunch of journalism was done after that 2016 season (where Alabama lost to Clemson on an egregious pick play in the end zone), and the last three seasons, Alabama's gone back to the middle of the pack in opponent penalties called. Alabama did see an uptick in penalties called on them as well in 2018 and 2019, but I think it more stemmed from just actually committing more penalties than in the past. Undisciplined play and all that.
I've not looked at numbers in 2020, but I've felt the refs have let a lot of things slide this year. Alabama's gotten away with a LOT of borderline pass interferences to my eye... And then gets called for one last week where the defensive back jumped up with both hands and the receiver plowed into his chest. Plus it was totally uncatchable anyway. So I dunno. This year has actually felt like the refs HAVEN’T been against us so far. Just generally incompetent all the way around.
I don't know if that's different for other conferences, but it does seem particularly... Clownshow-like... in the SEC this year.
Tl;dr Auburn gets away with murder game-in and game-out while the rest of us just get screwed equally. And their fanbase takes pride in it like the degenerates they are

Conclusion

So what do we make of the fact that big teams get screwed by SEC refs too?

I’m frustrated with the SEC, but I don’t think the issue is solely the officiating. A major issue to me is the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability, and the lack of tact in handling these controversial situations. The statement after Arkansas-Auburn was correctly mocked for its corporate vagueness. Lane Kiffin wasn’t allowed to tell us what he heard from the conference. The SEC “isn’t allowed” to overturn wrongful suspensions. That’s all bogus. The conference where “it just means more” must be more transparent if it hopes to retain the most die hard fans in college football.

Whether this means publicly releasing statements on controversial calls, issuing game reports like the NBA does with its two minute reports, or simply phasing out officials who get it wrong too many times, something has to be done.

Marc Curles has been blowing calls for over ten years. He was suspended after the 2009 debacle, but has been allowed to keep officiating and making mistakes long after that time with no repercussions. I’m not calling for the guy to be fired, but quite frankly, it’s a high stakes game with high stakes outcomes, and if you can’t handle it, maybe you shouldn’t be officiating.

At the end of the day though, the officials are the ones who make the calls on the field, and they definitely need to get better. I’m not sure that they’re put in the best positions to succeed. Evidently, more comprehensive training could be done. Marc Curles is a financial advisor. He just does the refereeing thing on the weekends. Perhaps it’s time for the $€¢ to use some of its billions to hire full time referees to be trained to call games correctly as close to 100% of the time as possible. There will still be errors, of course, but maybe we’ll see something close to competency.

Maintaining the status quo will not fix anything. I hope that if we see any changes after this crazy year, officiating gets a much needed makeover. If not, things could maintain their current trajectory, where essentially every school in the league (except Auburn of course) may have to mark off one game a year as a loss to officiating, and nobody wants that.

For once, I’d love to NOT be discussing officials, and just talk about the games!

Thanks so much for sticking with me through the extended absence. It’s truly a pleasure to be back writing about the team I love, and I can’t wait to see where this road leads. What are your thoughts on SEC officiating? Is it all sound and fury? Should I quit whining? Leave a comment, and let me know.

Pig Tales by Tucker Partridge