When it comes to instant replay, tennis has it down. It's quick, decisive, initiated by the players and spares us two minutes of John McEnroe scribbling on the telestrator while the chair umpire squints at a video screen.
In college football, and in the ACC in particular, the introduction of instant replay hasn't been as quick or as smooth. But after further review, the use of instant replay has become less intrusive and more useful than its doubters and detractors would likely have imagined.
Practice and procedural changes have cut the average replay delay from about 1 minute, 30 seconds in 2005 to 1:15 last season, and this year all ACC replay booths will be equipped with high-definition monitors to increase the accuracy of decisions.
"I'm awfully glad that we have it," ACC associate commissioner Michael Kelly said. "We've worked hard the last couple years to work at it and refine it. Obviously, the first couple years we all thought it was too long of a delay and didn't have the statistics to see how effective it might be. ... It's kind of been proven the guys on the field do a better job than people probably think."
Other sports haven't been so lucky. There are big issues in soccer, where officials routinely make the wrong call on whether the ball crossed the goal line, and in baseball, where Jim Joyce's blown judgment call cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game. (The Little League World Series was a test case on using instant replay for situations other than questionable home runs, giving coaches the right to challenge calls.)
As those various sports consider adding or expanding instant replay to their officiating arsenal, they can draw some lessons from the ACC's experience - one that got off to a sometimes rocky start but after five years has become an increasingly smooth and less intrusive operation.
Coaches were given the option to challenge along the way, and minimizing delays and interruptions continues to be the goal. But five years of experience has shown the ACC that replay helps officials the most when their eyes deceive them. "What replay has taught us is that of all the over a thousand stoppages we've had, of all the calls we've reversed, it usually comes down to three plays," ACC officiating supervisor Doug Rhoads. "The most common is catch/no catch: Did he catch the ball or not, was he on the sideline or not? No. 2 is fumble/no fumble: Was he down when the ball came loose or the ball came loose and then he was down? And the third is scoring plays - breaking the plane of the goal line."
In other words, the plays where replay has the most impact are the quick, "Did you see it?" kind of plays, not rule interpretations and the like. What the naked eye can't see, sometimes replay can.
Instant replay has fixed some of the ACC's biggest officiating gaffes, such as back judge Virgil Valdez incorrectly ruling a Virginia field goal no good as he ducked out of the way of the ball in the game against North Carolina.
Had it been installed for the 2004 season, it might even have provided a conclusive verdict on N.C. State running back T.A. McLendon's disputed non-touchdown against the Tar Heels as well, although odds are any replay official would have had a hard time finding indisputable video evidence in the middle of that goal-line scrum.
Instant replay is an accepted part of the game, and while college football games still take far too long, replay isn't the culprit. The ACC's experience has shown that instant replay has something to offer to anyone that wants to get it right.
"There are processes that need to be defined," Kelly said. "If you're a new sport, you'd really have to think about when would you stop it, and there's an increasing amount of times when it could be, because the whole point is to correct an egregious error.
"I think you have to really think through when it's applied. But I think we've given good examples of how you can refine it and make it better."
