Well, good.

SEC gives official OK to instant replay

DOUG SEGREST and CHARLES GOLDBERG
News staff writers

The Southeastern Conference made it official Thursday when presidents voted in favor of instant replay for the 2005 football season.

Instant replay was proposed in November, after SEC Director of Officials Bobby Gaston and observer Rogers Redding flew to Chicago to review how the Big Ten utilized the rule. Redding then attended a Big Ten game to see league officials in action.

"Through every meeting and discussion with our coaches, athletics directors and presidents and chancellors, the use of instant replay received overwhelming support," SEC Commissioner Mike Slive said.

"Our officials make every effort to get each call right. Instant replay will go a long way in helping them accomplish their goal."

Auburn's Tommy Tuberville said SEC coaches are "all for it" after discussing the issue in January. Tuberville said the coaches agreed to follow the Big Ten model, though the SEC can experiment with elements of the replay rule this season.

"After this year, there won't be any more experimentation," Tuberville said. "There will be instant replay for basically everybody. Everybody will be going to the same rules. It's good." [...]

Tuberville said the Big Ten officials reviewed 48 plays and "23-25 were overturned."

"Only 48 plays were reviewed, but every play was looked at by an official in the box," Tuberville said. "Everybody was convinced at the end of the game that it was a well-officiated game.

"I think it gives everybody, including the officials on the field, confidence that no matter what, the play is going to be called right." [...]

I have always been a bit skeptical of instant replay, but it's been around long enough now to where most of the kinks have been solved. And let's face it--sometimes a call is wrong. It wouldn't be a big deal if there was no such thing as television, with multitudes of cameras pointed at the obvious mistakes. In high school and itty-bitty college ball, no one has as close a view as the officials (most of the time), and without cameras, no one is really in any better position to question a call than anyone else. You grudgingly accept it and offer to carry the referees to the eye doctor, and then go on. But in big time college ball, just like in the pros, missed calls at crucial times can have a big impact on the money that colleges can haul in. And really, isn't that what's really important in all this, the money?

Sure it is.
posted by Terry at 10:30:00 AM