Refs: Less might be more

The news that an ACC officiating crew missed the call twice on a Clemson fumble last week against N.C. State wasn't surprising to anyone who had a decent look at the television replays.

As is the case in most other conferences, football officiating in the ACC isn't very good. The introduction of replay officials has reduced the number of uncorrected errors, but not to the extent that the policy can be justified.

Any replay system that can't resolve close calls in a matter of seconds - like tennis, for instance - literally is a waste of time. In football's case, the replay time factor is so frustratingly long that it's a joke. When the ruling is still wrong after the replay delay, it's one joke too many.

A smarter move for everyone would be to take the money being wasted on video equipment and replay officials and invest it in improving the on-field personnel. In other words, upgrade the officiating, not the bells and whistles.

Simply giving officials pay increases isn't the solution. In BCS conferences, officials can earn up to $15,000 - plus expenses - annually. The average pay is roughly $1,200 per game.

NFL officials are paid more - some have annual contracts for more than $50,000, and the low end starts at $20,000 - but they also work several more games each season (and preseason) and have more demanding training clinic obligations.

The college football template is never going to change to the point that officials become full-time, year-round employees, which is something all of us need to keep in mind. The coaches and schools get the money. The players and officials essentially participate because they want to.

A majority of the officials are middle-aged folks with middle-class weekday jobs who began the process as much younger people working junior high and high school games.

The best and easiest way to improve officiating would be through better training and on-field organization.

For starters, the colleges might consider returning to smaller crews. As opposed to six-man (or even five-man) crews, the seven-official crew adds very little bang for the buck. What it sometimes does is add another flag and another controller to a sport that's easily - and way too often - over-officiated as it is. How often do you see flags thrown for infractions that never came close to having occurred? There are usually two or three each game on kick returns alone.

Football is not rocket science. The more complicated it becomes, the less fun it is to watch. College administrators need to keep that simple fact in mind.

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