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Big Ten may have made a very costly mistake

By Tom Dienhart - SportingNews






Did the Big Ten make a $4.5 million mistake by allowing an officiating crew that was facing a suspension this weekend to work last Saturday's Illinois-Ohio State game?

As I reported last week, a source told me the conference plans to suspend the crew that officiated the Nov. 3 Purdue-Penn State game based on a review of its work in that game. That same crew worked one of the biggest Big Ten games of the year last weekend in Columbus.

Incredible.

Why would the Big Ten assign the crew -- a few of whom could be fired for their work in the Purdue-Penn State game -- to a game of this importance?

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The Big Ten does not comment on specific officiating issues.

The crew includes referee Stephen Pamon, umpire Pat Bayers, linesman Jack Teitz, line judge Robert Davis, back judge Dennis Morris, field judge Bobby Sagers and side judge Joe Duncan.

That group called just three penalties, one on Illinois and two on Ohio State. And a few perceived non-calls have Buckeye Nation angry. Many more fans are upset knowing this crew was running the game.

Were there blown calls? That's debatable. But perception matters more than reality. And the reality is this crew shouldn't have been trusted with such a game.

And how's this for another megadose of reality? The loss cost No. 1 Ohio State a shot at playing for the BCS title. What's more, that loss hurt the Big Ten's chances of sending a second school to a BCS bowl, which would net the conference an additional $4.5 million.

Now, the Big Ten will have to be satisfied with getting just one BCS team. The winner of this weekend's Ohio State at Michigan game will go to the Rose Bowl.

Tom Dienhart is a staff writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at [email protected].

Somehow life will go on.

Were these referees under suspension?
Because if they weren't, I don't see a problem.

Wah, wah.

Big deal. Those refs didn't do anything to change the course of that game. The fumble near the end zone for Illinois could have been reviewed and wasn't, tough break but that's life. A multi-threat QB dominated you and Illinois deserved to win.

Yeah, as a fan of the Buckeyes (when they aren't playing the Falcons), as long as they weren't suspended, there is really no problem. Granted there is a discrepency between the 3 penalties called during OSU/Illinois and the, something in the area of 30 in the game in question. But hey, no suspension, no problem.

I can see the argument, but if that crew didn't officiate that game, they would have officiated some other Big 10 game and screwed that one up. Besides, there would be a bigger issue if they had officiated this coming weekend's OSU Michigan game. That's the big game, not OSU Illinois.

If you can't take the ball away from the other team for over eight and a half minutes, sorry, I don't think the officials blew it for you.

But how are the Big Ten schools going to live without that $4.5 million!?!?!

I have already heard this excuse used by neighbors of mine that are Buckeye fans. I just laughed and said what is the excuse for losing to Findlay.

Never in my life would I have thought that I would be defending tekekini, but I don't think he was doing any whining. This was a story written by a national publication, not some local hack or Columbus beat writer. And it doesn't extoll that Ohio State would have won the game if not for the referees. In fact, the writer states "Were there blown calls? That's debatable." The point was that the Big Ten knew this crew sucked and is facing suspension, but still assigned them to the biggest game of the week. They should have been doing Iowa-Minne or Ind-NW, not OSU-Ill.

And all teke did was post the story. No "see, I told ya so"s are anything that.

Warthog wrote:Never in my life would I have thought that I would be defending tekekini, but I don't think he was doing any whining. This was a story written by a national publication, not some local hack or Columbus beat writer. And it doesn't extoll that Ohio State would have won the game if not for the referees. In fact, the writer states "Were there blown calls? That's debatable." The point was that the Big Ten knew this crew sucked and is facing suspension, but still assigned them to the biggest game of the week. They should have been doing Iowa-Minne or Ind-NW, not OSU-Ill.

And all teke did was post the story. No "see, I told ya so"s are anything that.

Tekie's definitely making progress. Slow progress, but progress.

Warthog wrote:Never in my life would I have thought that I would be defending tekekini, but I don't think he was doing any whining. This was a story written by a national publication, not some local hack

If it looks like the work of a hack and reads like the work of a hack, then it is the work of a hack, and I don't much care where it was published.

It's an absolutely ridiculous piece, starting with the very first sentence about the supposed $4.5 million mistake.

Is he suggesting that referees are supposed to fix things so that their league puts more teams into lucrative bowl games? Is he suggesting that an Ohio State loss was a logical, foreseeable outcome of the assignment given this particular set of officials to that game?

I could go on and on. Do I really have to?

Waaaah. And, at the end of the day, so freaking what?

That piece was pathetic. It was so bad, his edtors ought to be assigned to cover Louisiana-Monroe football all next season, just to make up for so offending Common Sense.

Warthog wrote:Never in my life would I have thought that I would be defending tekekini, but I don't think he was doing any whining.

I'm not sure I read anything in this thread which targeted teke. I saw them attacking the author of the piece.

I didn't see the game so I have no opinion on the officiating.

Schadenfreude wrote:Is he suggesting that referees are supposed to fix things so that their league puts more teams into lucrative bowl games? Is he suggesting that an Ohio State loss was a logical, foreseeable outcome of the assignment given this particular set of officials to that game?

No he is not suggesting the referees would fix the game. The point is that that set of officials are known to be of low quality. So why would the Big Ten risk the officials making a mistake that would cost the conference a shot at an additional 4.5 mil.

And he is not saying that the refs cost OSU the game. But with poor quality officials, there is a greatly chance of them making a mistake that does impact the outcome.