[NU Sports] Hawaii officiating

[NUMBalum78 at aol.com]

I was in attendance at the NU vs. Hawaii game, and it was the worst example 
of "officiating" I've ever seen -- and that includes high school games.  It was 
obvious from the successive penalties that began the game that the refs were 
looking for ANY opportunity to throw the flag on Northwestern, while turning a 
blind eye to Hawaii's infractions, most notably constant, egregious holding 
by the (much smaller) Hawaii line.  

The worst examples: 

In the second quarter, Hawaii's receiver clearly stepped out of bounds AT 
LEAST TWICE while running down the sideline.  The refs still called it a 
touchdown. 

On Hawaii's kick return for a touchdown, Huffman was blatantly blocked in the 
back while trying to tackle the Hawaii returner.  No flag. 

The refs kept calling 15-yard "kick-catch interference" penalties on NU -- 
essentially invoking the halo rule.  Only problem is, the halo rule doesn't 
exist anymore.  One of our guys running PAST the receiver is not interference!!!  

Worst of all, Baz's last pass with less than 2 minutes left in the game 
CLEARLY hit the turf before being jumped on by a Hawaii defender.  It wasn't even 
close to being an interception, but that's what the refs called it anyway.  
That bogus call effectively ended the game, when NU should have had a decent 
chance of sending the game into overtime.  


Now if this had just been the Northwestern game, I might have chalked it up 
to sloppy officiating and nothing more.  But if you put our game together with 
the lousy officiating in the MSU game, something really starts to look 
suspicious in Oahu.  (MSU had two touchdowns called back on questionable holding 
penalties, and they were flagged for 119 yards in penalties while Hawaii hardly 
got any calls against them.)  Combine this with the fact that the head ref at 
the MSU game actually LIVES in Hawaii, and it really starts to reek of bias.  
Whatever happened to the concept of bringing in a neutral officiating crew for a 
non-conference game?  

So am I trying to excuse NU's poor play in Hawaii?   Not at all, nor am I 
ignoring our lousy play-calling.   But none of that excuses potentially CORRUPT 
officiating that swung the game to Hawaii.  In my opinion, the officiating at 
the NU and MSU games demands an investigation -- and I've never said that about 
any other game in my life.  I don't know for sure whether the crews came from 
the WAC, but with at least one bowl game on the line, the Big Ten really 
ought to review what happened in Hawaii.  Two Big Ten teams definitely got jobbed 
in Aloha Stadium this year.  



In a message dated 12/8/2004 12:32:44 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
spiritu at northwestern.edu writes:
Given the way the B10 was jobbed by refs while playing in Hawai'i this
year, I'm not sure we *didn't* deserve better than sitting at home for the
holidays.

Did I miss any posts describing exactly where the refs were from?  Also,
does anyone know if the same refs "officiated" at the next game where MSU
got jobbed worse than we did?