Their head of football business operations is allowed to sit in the replay booth and have a vote. He over ruled trained officials on a targeting call last week, and frustrated the officials.
Why do 4 of 5 major conferences now have their own special oversight replay booth for possible override?
Link: https://sports.yahoo.com/yahoo-sports-exclusive-document-shows-untrained-third-party-overruled-targeting-call-pac-12-game-040318946.html
The only thing unusual here is the call went against USC. The Pac-12 has a history of helping USC, especially when the Rose Bowl bid was on the line. For years Pac-12 official felt USC was the only team that could beat the Ohio States, and Michigans coming out west from the Mid west. This goes back a long ways, of course.
There the infamous Paul MacDonald incomplete pass which was actually a fumble ND recovered. The ball went back to SC who then kicked a winning field goal. The play where their running back was stopped on the one yard line but the official ruled he had jumped over the pile, scored and was pushed back. ND lost by less than a touchdown. It was John Robinson's last game and the rallying cry had been, "Win one for the fat man." Yes, the official did. UCLA has been screwed numerous times by Pac-12 officials re USC.
Nothing he Pac-12 does surprises me.
It was actually a much worse call than you described. The USC back leaped over the pile and "scored" but left the ball behind in the hands of a ND defender to stripped the ball away as the back started to jump (the replay angles that ABC (?) had didn't clearly show the strip but clearly showed an ND defender will the ball on the one yards line or so after the play. As one would expect the post game discussion was along the lines of we called what we saw and once we did couldn't reverse it.
Believe it or not there is more to the game story. ND got amazing got into position to throw into the end zone (something like 25 yards not a hail mary) and had an open receiver with a good chance of catching the pass disappeared into the sea of USC defenders. Most any disinterested person watching would have been surprised there was no flag but that was how it turned out.
The bigger issue was that over a period of 8-9 years there was at least one clearly blown call in every game that favored USC. My "favorites" are two. In 1964 there was a holding penalty on the goal line with film that shows our offensive tackle completely missed his block and threw out his hands to brace his fall from being off balance. The other was the "phantom clip" in a tie game that took ND out of FG range very close to end. Again the film showed the blocking angle was "legal" but the defender turned around right at full contact. The ref said it had to a clip because of what he saw after the runner went by.
description of all these things. In Paul MacDonald "incomplete pass" game the head official later reffed at the Rose Bowl against Ohio State. In that game the SC back-I think it was
Charlie White fumbled on the Ohio State 2 yard line. In the tape you can see him punch the ground in frustration. An official runs in a says he was down so SC kept the ball-incorrectly, SC later scored.
It was reported he was the same official from the ND and he was a USC grad. I can't believe an SC grad was officiating in both games. Two friends, credible, told me it was true.
Let us hear the conversation between the replay officials and those on the field. Rugby does this and it's great.
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"Command Center" in San Fran is the only party able to override. Anything else is inviting corruption.
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Makes no sense. Officials should be centrally managed by the NCAA.
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