[NU Sports] Big Ten bowls ... 0-1 (fwd)

[Michael Vance]

At 12/29/2005 09:35 AM, Mike Nolan wrote:
> > The announcers were right--one of the worst officiated  bowl games I 
> had ever
> > seen. Sure Michigan blew it with some turnovers in the 4th Q, but the game
> > was stolen-bad calls, inexperienced refs  with the replay rule...
>
>I though the bad calls were roughly evenly split.

I agree, Mike.  It was a poorly officiated game, but I don't think that it 
had a material effect on the outcome.

>The catch interference
>penalty was a bad break for the Huskers

And the officials got it right the next time.  The two instances were so 
alike that the both crew honestly wasn't sure which replay they were 
looking at after the second one.  I'd love to see them side-by-side.  And 
I'll bet Michigan's special teams coach had more than a few choice words 
for whoever had the assigment to pick up Shanle.

>I have no idea how to score the last play of
>the game, both teams had players and/or coaches on the field, there was
>also a steadicam operator and a still photographer out there, plus several
>others.

Once again, I think the guys in the broadcast booth eventually got it right 
when they noted that it should have been offsetting penalties.  Unless they 
actually counted the number of people from each team on the field and gave 
out individual penalties.  But the outclassed officials were saved from 
having to make that call when the only two Nebraska players who bothered to 
listen for a whistle made the tackle.  But damn, that  was close!

>However, coaches shouldn't have to use up their time outs to get the
>officials to review key plays, those time outs could have been a big help
>to Michigan in the final minutes.  The NCAA should modify their review
>procedure to give the coaches a couple of red flags like in the NFL.
>(But I like the booth being able to initiate reviews too.)

I agree.  I like booth review because it allows someone on the officiating 
crew with access to video to say, "Whoops, we might have made the wrong 
call."  But there has to be a better way for a coach to get a review than 
burning a timeout.  There were also a couple of times during the regular 
season at NU games when I heard fans speak out against the strategy of 
having the offense quick-snap to avoid a review of a potentially 
controversial catch.  I think that Purdue did it to us once or twice and I 
heard it mentioned at two or three other games.

>Moreover, a truism of football is that a team should NEVER put itself in
>a position where a bad call can cost them the game, and Michigan blew
>several chances to put the game away in the 2nd half

Once again, you're right.  Michigan clearly had the better overall talent 
and had plenty of opportunities to pad their lead in the first half.  But 
they really blew it by forgetting to hang on to the ball in the fourth 
quarter.  Turnovers hurt, late turnovers will kill you.

>This has been grating on me for two days:  If Rutgers could score
>40 points against ASU, why the heck couldn't Northwestern score more
>than 21 against them?

I think the only answer to that question is that neither ASU nor NU are the 
same teams now that they were back in September.  If we played even a month 
later than we did, I think the result would have been very different.


Michael, CAS '91
mailto:michael at vance.com