With Narduzzi and Fisher both blasting officiating, will ACC stop the circus? Or is holding referees to the same standard as players and coaches necessary.
Jimbo Fisher is correct. Players and coaches are held accountable. Officials should be too. Pat Narduzzi is incorrect. Our wide receivers were getting mugged all night. Fisher also gave Clemson true credit. Narduzzi said our receivers did a good job of pushing off. I respect Fisher much more.
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Watching the DVR of the VT-Pitt game, I counted 8 plays where PI could have and perhaps should have been called against Pitt. I also saw a replay of the block that Fisher was so livid about. Looked to me like a good call. It was below the waste and slightly behind the defender. The refs have called Wyatt on about three of those calls this year that Hokie fans complained about. I would need to see replays of Wyatt's blocks to make a judgment.
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That was a bogus, bogus call it was right at the waist and that call was designed to stop people diving at knees and injuring players, that play was no where close to doing either.
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I don't know, Chris. If we are referring to the same play call, I thought it was at least reasonable. As someone who sustained a catastrophic knee injury playing college football, I suppose I have a different perspective.
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What I think drew the flag was the blatant chop on the back of the ankle of the Clemson defender, with the intent to bring him down. Definitely a penalty.
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It's illegal to block below the waist outside the tackle box unless you are blocking the front of the defender. "Front" is defined as between the "10" and "2" on a clock face. From the side, e.g. 3:00, is illegal. This rule is what saves our linebackers and safeties from WR and A-Backs sweeping around and cut blocking them from the side as they try to flow in the direction of the triple option.
It's pretty clear to me that the blocker engaged the defender on the outside of his upper thigh, in the 3:00 position, executing an illegal block. The blocker then grabs the defenders foot, ensuring that he trips and falls to the ground. Two illegal actions on the same block.
As called, 'illegal block below the waist' is a 15 yard personal foul.
At a minimum the grab of the defender's foot constitutes holding, which is a 10 yard penalty. Both of these penalties are applied from the original line of scrimmage, so even if FSU somehow avoided the illegal block penalty there's still a holding penalty that should've been called that would have backed them up only 5 yards less than the actual (correct) call.
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So let's say this is totally the correct call, this shouldn't be a penalty in football.
What Wyatt has been doing is why this rule exists, diving at the knees of players downfield is dangerous and so this rule is a good step towards protecting players in that instance. Nothing about the block on Van Smith in this gif is dangerous. He hits him from the side at waist level. Nobody is tearing up their knee on this play barring some freak "foot planted in the wrong spot" kind of occurrence that can happen walking out of bounds with no contact. Either way, this is the kind of bullshit that Clemson has been getting all year to help them survive games.
This this is the third straight close game where Clemson's opponent has gotten double digit penalties. NC State had 12 penalties the other day before Clemson got ONE, this included a blatant pass interference on a Clemson interception that was ignored and an incredibly obvious facemask that would have given NC State a first down inside the 10 that eventually led to a missed field goal.
Same thing at Louisville where they ignored an incredibly obvious downfield PI on Clemson with no obstruction of view whatsoever that led to an undeserved Clemson stop. Clemson promptly scored on a short field (how they scored four of their touchdowns against Lousiville). Throughout the rest of the game there were multiple no calls on Clemson in important situations and downs.
The only difference this game was that they did actually call the obvious PI's Clemson was committing this game. Still ended up with less penalties and less penalty yards than FSU and I expect this trend to continue.
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You would understand if you grew up in upstate SC around these awful fans, but yeah, I'm gonna leave this one alone. If we get a shot at them in the ACCCG and win, that would be the ultimate catharsis.
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While this instance isn't likely to cause an injury, too many others that are initiated below the belt, from the side are likely to do so. It's tough for refs to see the nuance difference in real time. Heck, they can't get "targeting" right in review, let alone real time, so zero chance that they could consistently draw the distinction that you illustrate in real time.
I have no problem with the rule nor its application in this case. The O player should know the rule and put himself in position to make a legal block.
Also note that in this play, it's Jimbo losing his st*t on the call that really hurts FSU. FSU had a real chance of over coming a 15 yd penalty. It's almost impossible to over come 30 yds of penalties on 1 play.
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And while I feel dirty for saying something positive about him... Notice that Dabo didn't complain about the 4+ PI and 1 hold (on WR prior to the throw) called against his team. All of the penalties on Clemson were legit. The one that set Jimbo off was "grey area" as a minimum (though Jimbo has to keep his composure better than that).
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If the refs had called what they were supposed to in the first quarter, we wouldn't have been seeing all of that contact in the third and fourth quarter.
Pushoffs here and there is one thing. But blatant jersey pulling that isn't being flagged is a problem.
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All of the push offs that I saw were in response to being grabbed/held. Call the holding/PI then if the push offs continue call it too. I get that hand fighting down field is part of the game, but blatant holding is a penalty and should be called.
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What the P5 or NCAA needs are professional refs, hired to work year round, or at least the corps hired for year round, they would work games for any conference. That way every game is held to same standard and refs are ready to actually work these high speed games. Enough of the Doctor by day ref by night stuff.
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Unfortunately from what i've seen for Football its all about your conference so no crossing paths. ACC has a different ref team/theory than the SEC and PAC
If you worked the Pitt VT game can you work the closest SEC game next week. I know Ron Cherry's name and only from the ACC ever but do refs go to other conferences...can they?
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The refs are employed by the conferences. Ron Cherry cycles through ACC games. Most of the time, the conference of the home team provides the refs, but sometimes the contracts will call for something different.
Occasionally, for neutral site games and other instances, a third party ref crew might be involved. Like the Battle of Bristol used Big Ten refs. Same thing happens in bowl games. Ron Cherry worked the Fiesta Bowl a few years ago with Oregon and Kansas State, and got to make that excellent one point safety call.
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Will NEVER happen! IF they hired officials to work that way they would have to pay medical benefits and the costs for officials would be SUPER high. If they did it for football they would have to do it for every sport and basketball refs would make more than the $4000 per game that they already make!
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Unfortunately for Football its all about your conference just look in to the Bowl season and you'll see how little the NCAA is actually involved
From my understanding the Bowl Foundation/Company enters a contract with 2 conferences to host a game and sells the TV rights to ESPN/or anyone else that pays the most money. Take part of the money and pays the teams to play in it. Creates lots of marketing/Admin costs and passes on the remaining revenue to the honorary Social Impact to become a Non Profit. Not to much interaction with the NCAA
Regular season is From my understanding the Bowl Foundation/CompanyConference enters a contract with 2 conferences12ish schools to host a bunch game and sells the TV rights to ESPN/or anyone else that pays the most money. Take part of the money and pays the teams to play in it. Creates lots of marketing/Admin costs and passes on the remaining revenue to the honorary Social ImpactSchools to become a Non Profit. Not to much interaction with the NCAA
I think
NCAA Basketball....TOTALLY DIFFERENT See March Madness
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Slightly OT: there were a lot of "illegal contact" and "defensive holding" calls in the Patriots-Bills game today, many of them away from the ball. Are there different rules in the NFL on contact by the defenders?
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I don't know who is in charge of ACC officiating these days, but back when Doug Rhoads was in charge, he ran a pretty tight ship I thought. I knew Doug and his wife Denise through work, and had a mountain of respect for them both.
My guess would be that Doug's no-nonsense approach has not completely carried over to the current administration. Hope that we never see another game like that mess in Pittsburgh ever again. Officials need to stand up to coaches and players and keep the game in control when they blatantly abuse the rules.
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Since it's pertinent to this topic, Narduzzi (or likely, Pitt) is being fined $5,000 for his comments after the game which I feel like is the lightest tap on the wrist you could come up with. If he keeps that bullshit up, they should multiply that fine by 10.
Cowardly accurately describes the refs in the Pitt game.
So even though Fisher was wrong about the call he wa a upset about, I appreciate that his actions might help light a fire under ACC a$$ to improve in-get calls.
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In a weird way, this was my reaction, as well. When one of the blue bloods of the ACC publicly rips the officials, the conference might start taking notice. Jimbo can easily survive a $20k fine; it doesn't matter to him. Little to lose and potentially much to gain from his perspective.
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If yall think ACC officiating is inconsistent now, just hang around to basketball season. Half the time it feels like UNC and Duke bring their own refs with them to away games. The amount of times Devin Wilson sets a textbook charge and gets called for a blocking foul is unreal.
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I reffed intramurals at Tech (laugh all you want) and one year we had an SEC ref come in and give us some tip/pointers/advice etc. (again, laugh all you want). The hardest call in basketball is the block/charge call, it's almost always a fast play and you are generally watching the players upper body as that is where all the action happens in basketball. The thing he told us, that I still use to this day, is to watch the way the defender falls. It almost boils down to basic physics, if the defender falls flat on their butt or back it's a charge, if they fall on a hip or elbow it's a block. The only real exception here is if the defender is not facing the player with the ball, which doesn't happen too often in this type of play. Anyone disagree?
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The fact that he told you to watch the way a guy falls shows where the problem lies...they don't even know how to call it or what to look for. It's easy to coach these athletes "how to fall"...see Coach K
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ACC, Big XII and PAC-12 officiating is all suspect at best. SEC doesn't like to review close plays for some reason, but by and large the officiating seems okay. B1G seems to have the best officiating.
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If there's anything constant with refs, its that they are terrible at every level of the game. Even the NFL has horrendous reffing on a game by game and week by week basis. Gotten so bad at that level the reigning league MVP felt obligated to speak out and say he doesn't feel safe playing the sport anymore because of the mistrust he has in the refs to offer the protection granted by the rulebook itself.
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I am a Vikings fan, so no Panthers bias at all here, but they let Cam and other "running" QB's get hit in ways that they would never let Brady, Manning, or Rodgers get hit without throwing every flag on their person. It is truly unbelievable how much they let tacklers get away with on Cam.
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Its not even that, and Cam brought this up yesterday... He's getting hit like this, shots to the head, players going low at the knees, in the pocket and he's not getting the call because of the mindset that he's a running QB. At a certain point, he's 100% correct that he's not being allowed to play the game the way other QBs are throughout the league because he has a skillset that somehow makes it open season on his body. Its unreal that there's this mass acceptance that, because he is bigger, or he can run, that he shouldn't get the same protection that any other player in the league would get. I saw yesterday that opposing defenses have only been flagged once for roughing on Cam the past season and a half, and that one penalty was a targeting headshot against the Broncos that was offset by a weak holding call on the offense. And yet he's hit constantly on a game by game basis that would get defenses rung up against the likes of Brady, Rodgers, Ryan, etc.
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Ah yes, so in summation, they really need to fix this double standard because it's going to potentially (and almost certainly) impact the longevity and effectiveness of the one of the game's brightest young stars.
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Its not just him, but right now its the biggest example. Watch Alex Smith's head bounce off the turf over the weekend. Look at the numerous players that get carted and helped off the field every week because defensive players can't stop leading with the helmet.
Fines don't work. The NFL needs to go the route of college football here. Lead with the helmet once, automatic ejection from the game, with suspension escalators for every subsequent infraction. You want to be serious about player safety, then make the penalties for these dangerous hits by the defense severe enough they don't do it anymore.
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Yes, he's certainly not the only one at risk. Any Qb that is thought of as a "running" QB at all, or even just lesser known brand QB's are not subject to the same protection as the NFL's prized guys.
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What's strange to me is in one sense, the NFL will do just about anything they can to keep the best players on the field. For example, the terrible concussion protocol, and in general fining players rather than suspending them. However, once on the field they do little to keep players healthy. Once again, just like the concussion protocol, the lack of consistent suspensions for malicious or out of control hits, and a general lack of protecting anyone but the quality pocket passers in the league and maybe also receivers.
I get the feeling that the football will eventually have to stop in the future unless some major technological advancements happen to the PPE the players use.
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What sucks is that the NFL is basically ignoring this problem. Its gonna kill their game, which in turn will kill the college game. People aren't gonna watch a bad product, but more importantly, players aren't gonna want to play a sport that doesn't pay as well. What would I say to the NFL?
Yeah, the NFL is really screwing the pooch right now, and you have nowhere further to look than the fact that Burfict is still allowed to play despite everything that man has done to injure players on a weekly basis. Suspended the first few weeks this year, he comes in and immediately starts doing the same stuff again, and get off with a fine instead of another suspension. At that point, the NFL is openly saying they really don't give a shit about player safety.
I would not be surprised if there's another player strike before too long. If the NFL doesn't care about their safety, there's no reason to continue playing. You're both right, the NFL is on a path right now for the eventual downfall of the sport unless they drastically change. Unfortunately, they're lead by a dictatorial idiot who only cares about the current bottom line, and doesn't realize that he's actively harming the future of the game for a quick buck now.
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The thing that wasn't cool about the Pitt game was the obvious interference
not being called. I know officials are under pressure and try to get it right, but
these were obvious infractions and for whatever reason they weren't getting called.
It's been all over the place this season. Would be nice if it was more consistent.
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The constant pass interference that wasn't being called led to the pushoffs from our receivers, that ended up not being called, which turned the game into a shitshow for the public to watch. The way the DBs were literally draped all over our guys last week was the reason we had to push off a bit to get separation. At least the refs allowed that as well.
But that just undermines everything Nardouchy was complaining about after the game. Yes, our receivers pushed off. They pushed off because he instructed his defense to grab every bit of fabric on our jerseys and grab and pull arms as much as they could, with his mindset being he'll bitch to the refs enough they won't call it. But douchy won't talk about that, because it can't possibly be that his coaching was bad. Especially after he was already publicly called out for stubbornly sticking with a defensive scheme that simply wasn't working, like giving the corners some safety help.
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Pitt fans have been upset with his D play calling all season. It's the reason that they are giving up over 400 yds per game to P5 teams, who are not running a high school offense.
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Contrast with the FSU-CU game where they called PI and holding when it happened. While they may have still missed 1 or 2, for the most part when it happened in a way that affected the play, they called it.
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Human nature...they were being bullied by a coach into not calling all the ones they should have.
Problem is they didn't have the balls to call unsportsmanlike conduct on him and take control.
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Comments
I want them to fix the officiating, and not call 13 penalties on whoever Clemson is playing every week.
Jimbo Fisher is correct. Players and coaches are held accountable. Officials should be too. Pat Narduzzi is incorrect. Our wide receivers were getting mugged all night. Fisher also gave Clemson true credit. Narduzzi said our receivers did a good job of pushing off. I respect Fisher much more.
Watching the DVR of the VT-Pitt game, I counted 8 plays where PI could have and perhaps should have been called against Pitt. I also saw a replay of the block that Fisher was so livid about. Looked to me like a good call. It was below the waste and slightly behind the defender. The refs have called Wyatt on about three of those calls this year that Hokie fans complained about. I would need to see replays of Wyatt's blocks to make a judgment.
That was a bogus, bogus call it was right at the waist and that call was designed to stop people diving at knees and injuring players, that play was no where close to doing either.
I don't know, Chris. If we are referring to the same play call, I thought it was at least reasonable. As someone who sustained a catastrophic knee injury playing college football, I suppose I have a different perspective.
What I think drew the flag was the blatant chop on the back of the ankle of the Clemson defender, with the intent to bring him down. Definitely a penalty.
It's illegal to block below the waist outside the tackle box unless you are blocking the front of the defender. "Front" is defined as between the "10" and "2" on a clock face. From the side, e.g. 3:00, is illegal. This rule is what saves our linebackers and safeties from WR and A-Backs sweeping around and cut blocking them from the side as they try to flow in the direction of the triple option.
It's pretty clear to me that the blocker engaged the defender on the outside of his upper thigh, in the 3:00 position, executing an illegal block. The blocker then grabs the defenders foot, ensuring that he trips and falls to the ground. Two illegal actions on the same block.
As called, 'illegal block below the waist' is a 15 yard personal foul.
At a minimum the grab of the defender's foot constitutes holding, which is a 10 yard penalty. Both of these penalties are applied from the original line of scrimmage, so even if FSU somehow avoided the illegal block penalty there's still a holding penalty that should've been called that would have backed them up only 5 yards less than the actual (correct) call.
Great explanation, and I agree, but I am pretty sure both of those penalties are enforced from the spot of the foul.
So let's say this is totally the correct call, this shouldn't be a penalty in football.
What Wyatt has been doing is why this rule exists, diving at the knees of players downfield is dangerous and so this rule is a good step towards protecting players in that instance. Nothing about the block on Van Smith in this gif is dangerous. He hits him from the side at waist level. Nobody is tearing up their knee on this play barring some freak "foot planted in the wrong spot" kind of occurrence that can happen walking out of bounds with no contact. Either way, this is the kind of bullshit that Clemson has been getting all year to help them survive games.
This this is the third straight close game where Clemson's opponent has gotten double digit penalties. NC State had 12 penalties the other day before Clemson got ONE, this included a blatant pass interference on a Clemson interception that was ignored and an incredibly obvious facemask that would have given NC State a first down inside the 10 that eventually led to a missed field goal.
Same thing at Louisville where they ignored an incredibly obvious downfield PI on Clemson with no obstruction of view whatsoever that led to an undeserved Clemson stop. Clemson promptly scored on a short field (how they scored four of their touchdowns against Lousiville). Throughout the rest of the game there were multiple no calls on Clemson in important situations and downs.
The only difference this game was that they did actually call the obvious PI's Clemson was committing this game. Still ended up with less penalties and less penalty yards than FSU and I expect this trend to continue.
Your hatred of Clemson transcends logic
I generally agree with most of what you say on these boards but I think blind homerism is just taking over for you here...let it go man
You would understand if you grew up in upstate SC around these awful fans, but yeah, I'm gonna leave this one alone. If we get a shot at them in the ACCCG and win, that would be the ultimate catharsis.
While this instance isn't likely to cause an injury, too many others that are initiated below the belt, from the side are likely to do so. It's tough for refs to see the nuance difference in real time. Heck, they can't get "targeting" right in review, let alone real time, so zero chance that they could consistently draw the distinction that you illustrate in real time.
I have no problem with the rule nor its application in this case. The O player should know the rule and put himself in position to make a legal block.
Also note that in this play, it's Jimbo losing his st*t on the call that really hurts FSU. FSU had a real chance of over coming a 15 yd penalty. It's almost impossible to over come 30 yds of penalties on 1 play.
Exactly right on Jimbo. Wonder what the magic words were that got him the flag and not Narduzzi ?
I believe those words are "You fucked us!"
And while I feel dirty for saying something positive about him... Notice that Dabo didn't complain about the 4+ PI and 1 hold (on WR prior to the throw) called against his team. All of the penalties on Clemson were legit. The one that set Jimbo off was "grey area" as a minimum (though Jimbo has to keep his composure better than that).
We all know that if the officials were consistent in calling everything right Pat narduzzi would have been way more upset than what he was
Meh. They grabbed on defense. We pushed off on offense. I felt like they should have just let the players play more than they did
If the refs had called what they were supposed to in the first quarter, we wouldn't have been seeing all of that contact in the third and fourth quarter.
Pushoffs here and there is one thing. But blatant jersey pulling that isn't being flagged is a problem.
All of the push offs that I saw were in response to being grabbed/held. Call the holding/PI then if the push offs continue call it too. I get that hand fighting down field is part of the game, but blatant holding is a penalty and should be called.
What the P5 or NCAA needs are professional refs, hired to work year round, or at least the corps hired for year round, they would work games for any conference. That way every game is held to same standard and refs are ready to actually work these high speed games. Enough of the Doctor by day ref by night stuff.
I'd like to see a central review of "targeting" too. Calls seem to be incredibly inconsistent. Even reviews are incredibly inconsistent.
Unfortunately from what i've seen for Football its all about your conference so no crossing paths. ACC has a different ref team/theory than the SEC and PAC
If you worked the Pitt VT game can you work the closest SEC game next week. I know Ron Cherry's name and only from the ACC ever but do refs go to other conferences...can they?
The refs are employed by the conferences. Ron Cherry cycles through ACC games. Most of the time, the conference of the home team provides the refs, but sometimes the contracts will call for something different.
Occasionally, for neutral site games and other instances, a third party ref crew might be involved. Like the Battle of Bristol used Big Ten refs. Same thing happens in bowl games. Ron Cherry worked the Fiesta Bowl a few years ago with Oregon and Kansas State, and got to make that excellent one point safety call.
Will NEVER happen! IF they hired officials to work that way they would have to pay medical benefits and the costs for officials would be SUPER high. If they did it for football they would have to do it for every sport and basketball refs would make more than the $4000 per game that they already make!
Maybe there's a compromise that there's at least one head ref that's a hired professional and the rest are part timers?
If only the NCAA had a way of funding that with a low cost workforce providing entertainment for billions of dollars in revenues......
But since nothing like that exists, I guess we'll have to stick with it.
Yeah, it's a shame they don't have the funds for such a thing in NCAA football.
Unfortunately for Football its all about your conference just look in to the Bowl season and you'll see how little the NCAA is actually involved
From my understanding the Bowl Foundation/Company enters a contract with 2 conferences to host a game and sells the TV rights to ESPN/or anyone else that pays the most money. Take part of the money and pays the teams to play in it. Creates lots of marketing/Admin costs and passes on the remaining revenue to the honorary Social Impact to become a Non Profit. Not to much interaction with the NCAA
Regular season is From my understanding the
Bowl Foundation/CompanyConference enters a contract with2 conferences12ish schools to host a bunch game and sells the TV rights to ESPN/or anyone else that pays the most money. Take part of the money and pays the teams to play in it. Creates lots of marketing/Admin costs and passes on the remaining revenue to thehonorary Social ImpactSchools to become a Non Profit. Not to much interaction with the NCAAI think
NCAA Basketball....TOTALLY DIFFERENT See March Madness
Wait, ncaa refs aren't professionals? What the actual fuck is wrong with the ncaa?
Nope, most are Drs, lawyers, sales & businessmen
They get paid but they are not full time. I don't believe the NFL employs full time officials either.
Slightly OT: there were a lot of "illegal contact" and "defensive holding" calls in the Patriots-Bills game today, many of them away from the ball. Are there different rules in the NFL on contact by the defenders?
They're playing the Patriots so you expect anything less?
Yes rules are very different in NFL; illegal contact after 5 yds downfield vs eligible receiver is a rule in NFL, not in NCAA
Yes rules are very different in NFL; illegal contact after 5 yds downfield vs eligible receiver is a rule in NFL, not in NCAA
The officiating in the ACC has been unACCeptable.
I don't know who is in charge of ACC officiating these days, but back when Doug Rhoads was in charge, he ran a pretty tight ship I thought. I knew Doug and his wife Denise through work, and had a mountain of respect for them both.
My guess would be that Doug's no-nonsense approach has not completely carried over to the current administration. Hope that we never see another game like that mess in Pittsburgh ever again. Officials need to stand up to coaches and players and keep the game in control when they blatantly abuse the rules.
I believe we should have an oversight referee who can call a foul in case the on field referees miss the call. In a booth who can see the whole field.
That could interrupt the flow of the game more than it already has been by so many official reviews and penalties.
There would be a flag on every play, if that happened.
Calling a flag from the booth? You want the game to just get done. Or get done correctly?
FSU found out what life is like when you're playing the team the ACC wants to win to keep its national title hopes alive.
Since it's pertinent to this topic, Narduzzi (or likely, Pitt) is being fined $5,000 for his comments after the game which I feel like is the lightest tap on the wrist you could come up with. If he keeps that bullshit up, they should multiply that fine by 10.
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17929015/fsu-jimbo-fisher-pitt-pat-narduzzi-reprimanded-acc-criticizing-game-officials
20,000 fine for Fisher and 5,000 for Narduzzi. I'm pretty sure pat deserved more.
I think when Fisher called the ref's COWARDS, that is what put it over the edge. That and the actual sideline penalty that the Nard Puppy deserved
Cowardly accurately describes the refs in the Pitt game.
So even though Fisher was wrong about the call he wa a upset about, I appreciate that his actions might help light a fire under ACC a$$ to improve in-get calls.
In a weird way, this was my reaction, as well. When one of the blue bloods of the ACC publicly rips the officials, the conference might start taking notice. Jimbo can easily survive a $20k fine; it doesn't matter to him. Little to lose and potentially much to gain from his perspective.
I legitimately expected Narduzzi to have a stroke before the end of that game. The level of freaking the fuck out that he got to can't be healthy.
If yall think ACC officiating is inconsistent now, just hang around to basketball season. Half the time it feels like UNC and Duke bring their own refs with them to away games. The amount of times Devin Wilson sets a textbook charge and gets called for a blocking foul is unreal.
I reffed intramurals at Tech (laugh all you want) and one year we had an SEC ref come in and give us some tip/pointers/advice etc. (again, laugh all you want). The hardest call in basketball is the block/charge call, it's almost always a fast play and you are generally watching the players upper body as that is where all the action happens in basketball. The thing he told us, that I still use to this day, is to watch the way the defender falls. It almost boils down to basic physics, if the defender falls flat on their butt or back it's a charge, if they fall on a hip or elbow it's a block. The only real exception here is if the defender is not facing the player with the ball, which doesn't happen too often in this type of play. Anyone disagree?
The fact that he told you to watch the way a guy falls shows where the problem lies...they don't even know how to call it or what to look for. It's easy to coach these athletes "how to fall"...see Coach K
Oh, is there officiating in the ACC?
I haven't noticed any.
But seriously, what they need is consistency, both among themselves and with the rest of the NCAA.
ACC, Big XII and PAC-12 officiating is all suspect at best. SEC doesn't like to review close plays for some reason, but by and large the officiating seems okay. B1G seems to have the best officiating.
That kind of analysis is a start.
A "best practices" sort of thing.
If there's anything constant with refs, its that they are terrible at every level of the game. Even the NFL has horrendous reffing on a game by game and week by week basis. Gotten so bad at that level the reigning league MVP felt obligated to speak out and say he doesn't feel safe playing the sport anymore because of the mistrust he has in the refs to offer the protection granted by the rulebook itself.
I am a Vikings fan, so no Panthers bias at all here, but they let Cam and other "running" QB's get hit in ways that they would never let Brady, Manning, or Rodgers get hit without throwing every flag on their person. It is truly unbelievable how much they let tacklers get away with on Cam.
I thought Rodgers was a running QB
Its not even that, and Cam brought this up yesterday... He's getting hit like this, shots to the head, players going low at the knees, in the pocket and he's not getting the call because of the mindset that he's a running QB. At a certain point, he's 100% correct that he's not being allowed to play the game the way other QBs are throughout the league because he has a skillset that somehow makes it open season on his body. Its unreal that there's this mass acceptance that, because he is bigger, or he can run, that he shouldn't get the same protection that any other player in the league would get. I saw yesterday that opposing defenses have only been flagged once for roughing on Cam the past season and a half, and that one penalty was a targeting headshot against the Broncos that was offset by a weak holding call on the offense. And yet he's hit constantly on a game by game basis that would get defenses rung up against the likes of Brady, Rodgers, Ryan, etc.
I think you misunderstood, we are in total agreement, I was referring to all hits he has taken both in and out of he pocket.
I know... I was expanding upon the thought. We are in full agreement here.
Ah yes, so in summation, they really need to fix this double standard because it's going to potentially (and almost certainly) impact the longevity and effectiveness of the one of the game's brightest young stars.
Its not just him, but right now its the biggest example. Watch Alex Smith's head bounce off the turf over the weekend. Look at the numerous players that get carted and helped off the field every week because defensive players can't stop leading with the helmet.
Fines don't work. The NFL needs to go the route of college football here. Lead with the helmet once, automatic ejection from the game, with suspension escalators for every subsequent infraction. You want to be serious about player safety, then make the penalties for these dangerous hits by the defense severe enough they don't do it anymore.
Yes, he's certainly not the only one at risk. Any Qb that is thought of as a "running" QB at all, or even just lesser known brand QB's are not subject to the same protection as the NFL's prized guys.
What's strange to me is in one sense, the NFL will do just about anything they can to keep the best players on the field. For example, the terrible concussion protocol, and in general fining players rather than suspending them. However, once on the field they do little to keep players healthy. Once again, just like the concussion protocol, the lack of consistent suspensions for malicious or out of control hits, and a general lack of protecting anyone but the quality pocket passers in the league and maybe also receivers.
I get the feeling that the football will eventually have to stop in the future unless some major technological advancements happen to the PPE the players use.
What sucks is that the NFL is basically ignoring this problem. Its gonna kill their game, which in turn will kill the college game. People aren't gonna watch a bad product, but more importantly, players aren't gonna want to play a sport that doesn't pay as well. What would I say to the NFL?
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Consider this a reply to both you and MVhokie....
Yeah, the NFL is really screwing the pooch right now, and you have nowhere further to look than the fact that Burfict is still allowed to play despite everything that man has done to injure players on a weekly basis. Suspended the first few weeks this year, he comes in and immediately starts doing the same stuff again, and get off with a fine instead of another suspension. At that point, the NFL is openly saying they really don't give a shit about player safety.
I would not be surprised if there's another player strike before too long. If the NFL doesn't care about their safety, there's no reason to continue playing. You're both right, the NFL is on a path right now for the eventual downfall of the sport unless they drastically change. Unfortunately, they're lead by a dictatorial idiot who only cares about the current bottom line, and doesn't realize that he's actively harming the future of the game for a quick buck now.
I blame soccer.
The thing that wasn't cool about the Pitt game was the obvious interference
not being called. I know officials are under pressure and try to get it right, but
these were obvious infractions and for whatever reason they weren't getting called.
It's been all over the place this season. Would be nice if it was more consistent.
The constant pass interference that wasn't being called led to the pushoffs from our receivers, that ended up not being called, which turned the game into a shitshow for the public to watch. The way the DBs were literally draped all over our guys last week was the reason we had to push off a bit to get separation. At least the refs allowed that as well.
But that just undermines everything Nardouchy was complaining about after the game. Yes, our receivers pushed off. They pushed off because he instructed his defense to grab every bit of fabric on our jerseys and grab and pull arms as much as they could, with his mindset being he'll bitch to the refs enough they won't call it. But douchy won't talk about that, because it can't possibly be that his coaching was bad. Especially after he was already publicly called out for stubbornly sticking with a defensive scheme that simply wasn't working, like giving the corners some safety help.
Pitt fans have been upset with his D play calling all season. It's the reason that they are giving up over 400 yds per game to P5 teams, who are not running a high school offense.
His name is Naruzzi. He can't bring the D.
Contrast with the FSU-CU game where they called PI and holding when it happened. While they may have still missed 1 or 2, for the most part when it happened in a way that affected the play, they called it.
Human nature...they were being bullied by a coach into not calling all the ones they should have.
Problem is they didn't have the balls to call unsportsmanlike conduct on him and take control.