One shouldn’t be lumped into any group that has Bob Stoops
as its ring leader.
But it’s logical if the Pac-10 officiating brings that out
in people.
For the second time in this young season, Pac-10 officials are
facing a firestorm of criticism after absolutely butchering a call
in the fourth quarter that compromised the outcome of the game.
Saturday, USC’s 26-20 win over visiting Washington
didn’t invite conversations about the resurgence of the
Huskies’ program or the job coach Tyrone Willingham is doing
in only his second year in Seattle. Instead, the game was
undermined by a complete and utter failure on behalf of the
officials to keep order in the final seconds of the game.
USC notched a field goal with 1:13 to play, extending its lead
to six points, and that’s when the fun started. Isaiah
Stanback was driving the Huskies down the field in the closing
minute without any timeouts. After Stanback completed a pass to the
34-yard line with 2.1 seconds left, mayhem ensued.
After the chains had been moved upfield and the ball was placed
under the center, both teams stood in confusion while the referees
didn’t restart the clock. Willingham was yelling at his team
to get ready, and Pete Carroll was shouting at the officials about
the mysterious game stoppage.
After 15 seconds or so, Stanback took the snap and dropped back
to pass, at which time the officials ruled that the game clock had
run out, and the game was over.
The Pac-10-officiating group, led by Brian O’Cain, gave no
explanation as to why they had waited so long to restart the clock,
and then decided to restart the game without signaling either
team.
The basic job of a head official is to keep order in the game.
O’Cain failed in his fundamental role.
This came only two weeks after Oregon’s 34-33 win over
Oklahoma in Eugene was the subject of Sooners coach Bob Stoops
tirade of the year. Stoops’ team was the victim of horrendous
calls in the fourth quarter ““ an onside kick that was
recovered by the Sooners but rewarded to the Ducks, and an
invisible pass interference call that set up the game-winning
touchdown.
Stoops assailed the Pac-10, which is the only conference to
exclusively use its officials and no others in a nonconference
game. Stoops attacked the Pac-10’s stipulation, saying that
it lends itself to lopsided officiating.
Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen conceded this much by suspending
the officiating crew for one game.
Stoops is right. The Pac-10 has no legitimate reason to refuse
the service of outside officiating, especially from a Bowl
Championship Series conference like the Big XII.
It’s hard to believe that any Pac-10 officials would
purposefully hand the game to Oregon. (If anything, officials have
long been rumored to give the home team the breaks, out of a fear
of thousands of drunken sports fans.) But a perceived conflict of
interest is just as bad as an actual conflict of interest.
Hansen should get rid of this hideous, obsolete rule and allow
for outside officiating help in a nonconference game.
But the real disgrace wasn’t committed in a perceived
conflict of interest in Eugene. It was the total incompetence on
display at the L.A. Coliseum this past Saturday. Stoops’
complaint could always be dismissed by Hansen as merely sour grapes
from a tough coach.
But there’s only one excuse for what transpired at the
USC-Washington game: The college football ruling that the official
decides when the play clock stops is absurd.
Well, it is. The NCAA needs to adopt the NFL’s two-minute
warning without a first-down clock stoppage. But that misses the
point. Officials need to be able to execute the rules, whether they
make any sense. That’s the job of an arbiter.
The joke has long been that the Pac-10 has the worst officials
of all BCS conferences. Hansen has to address the fact that one of
his officials might have cost the Huskies a chance to hand the
Trojans’ their first conference loss in 26 games. Hansen
needs to find competent officials for the Pac-10’s flagship
football program. And that’s not going to be solved with a
one-game suspension.