Welcome to the third week of Football Follies starring the SEC referees.

For every week since the Georgia/LSU, we’ve gotten some fine apologies from the men who are supposed to be the ones who insure fairness on the NCAA football field. This week, it was Arkansas who felt the sting of the token “oops” from the zebras, receiving an apology about the 15 yard personal foul against Razorback defensive end Malcolm Sheppard, who was flagged for colliding with Marcus Gilbert away from the ball and set the Gators up with a 1st and goal at the ten yard line.

The statement issued by the SEC said there was “there was no evidence on the video to support the personal foul penalty called on Arkansas”, which I’m sure made the entire Arkansas nation feel better about the next play being the tying touchdown by the Gators enroute to their 6th victory of the season (the ugliest by far, but they don’t but a “U” instead of a “W” in the win column so does it really matter?).

Gator nation may damn me for blasphemy, but I kind of have to agree with writers who say Gilbert even initiated the contact that led to the penalty and that the refs just muffed the call.

This has been a trend this year, an unsettling turn of events, especially in the SEC, that has led to many great football games (and even the Ark/Fla ) being decided not by players, but in large part by the officials, or that’s at least becoming the perception by fans.  What’s worse is that now all further calls being made will be subject to argument and suspect, because you can’t be sure that Mr Magoo is seeing the right thing anymore.  Arkansas is still huffing and puffing about the penalty before the controversial Sheppard one, the rightly called pass interference that pushed the Gators to the front step of the red zone, and that one was pretty straight forward.

Again, if it was just the Florida game, perhaps this article wouldn’t have found its way to daylight, but this has been happening weekly here in the best football conference in the south.

Last week’s blunder may not have been an SEC official on the field, but it was an SEC team getting boned.  Mississippi State was driving and QB Tyson Lee completed a nice pass that gave the Bulldogs a first down at the Houston 4, but the refs on the field (again not SEC) ruled that he had crossed the line of scrimmage and the pass was illegal.  Granted, Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen didn’t challenge the play, but the official in the booth (an SEC employee) didn’t even bother to call for a replay.  Shouldn’t a possession changing call like a toe over the line of scrimmage be worth double checking when you’ve got two sides shouting opposites at you?  Don’t you want to make sure you don’t have to issue postgame apologies midweek for robbing a team of a victory?  Don’t you think sitting on your whistles is better than calling the wrong penalty? 

At this point, it’s not like we’re arguing between over-officiating or not calling enough penalties period, but we’re talking about bad calls across the board that are changing the outcomes of games for teams in the SEC this season.  There’s something to be said for allowing the players to play the game and the refs are making a habit of moving the spotlight off the players and to themselves this season, particularly late in the game when they should be as right as they can possibly be.  It isn’t fair to all these players sweating and aching in the fourth quarter to have all their hard work made moot when a black and white bandit comes riding in blowing a whistle and stealing all the momentum and, for one team, the game.  This was particularly felt three weeks ago.

Georgia vs LSU.

This was the one that started the dominoes a falling.

After just watching LSU march down the field and take the lead, Georgia did some marching of its own, ending with a fantastic grab by AJ Green in the end zone.  Green reached up and snatched the go ahead from the sky in front of a home crowd who was watching their inconsistent Bulldogs perhaps upset the #1 team in the SEC West.  However, as Green celebrated with his teammates, a false note sounded in the background as the shrill whistle of the ref was heard and suddenly Georgia was on the wrong end of an “excessive celebration” penalty, the most subjective and ridiculous of all penalties.

Word for word, the excessive celebration penalty in the NCAA rulebook reads, “any delayed, excessive, prolonged or choreographed act that attempts to focus attention on (a player or team)”.  This is a pretty murky rule, one subject to the feelings of the ref on the field as to what words like “excessive” and “prolonged” means.  I don’t know about you, but my ADD patience can sometimes make the word prolonged mean anything over few seconds, and the word excessive could mean two beers to my girl, but fifteen to me.  You can justify just about any reason here for throwing a flag and be able to stand behind it as you would your own opinion.

Do you see the problem here?

Green’s supposed infraction wasn’t celebrating with his team, that was the okay part of his need to unnecessarily express joy at going ahead in front of a home crowd late in a tight game.  His sin was what followed, when AJ made what the officials perceived as a gesture at the crowd meant to draw attention to him as he was going off the field.  Let me repeat, a young man who just made a circus catch along the edge of the end zone, over another player’s helmet, to put his team ahead, made a “GESTURE” at the crowd and was hit with a 15 yard excessive celebration penalty (actually, the second one of the game for Georgia).  The gesture wasn’t a throat slash.  It wasn’t one hand making an “L” and the other flashing the middle finger.  He wasn’t even pumping his fist at the LSU bench or even using his thumbs to answer the question, “Who has two thumbs and just put Georgia up on LSU?”.  Nope.  Nothing close.

All I could see is that he pointed up, either to the crowd in the upper decks or to God above them.  Maybe there was a fist pump.  This led to a fifteen yard penalty??? 

Listen, LSU most likely would have taken that game anyway, but to give Georgia and their nation of die hard fans some loophole to complain about doesn’t help.  Every media outlet in the country allowed Bulldogs  to express their disgust with the officiating and with how they were robbed of a game that they can now use as the excuse as to why their team blows this season (come get some for that comment Bulldogs, we’ll see you on Halloween. Oh and an ironic note to this story, former UGA head coach Vince Dooley was one of the people on the committee that got the excessive celebration penalty put in, he was the rules committee chairman at the time, so you did this to yourself).

I understand that this last one was put in to prevent the menacing shotgun blast celebrations and the prolonged, choreographed TD dances that were becoming so prevalent in the NFL for so long, but to make the wording so subjective to interpretation makes the rule weak and unusable.  These players aren’t grown men trying to hold their heads up as role models and professional adults; these are a bunch of kids doing something they’ve dreamed of their whole lives, usually in front of millions watching on TV and a stadium full of people screaming just for them.  Most of you were kids once, don’t you recall how hard it is not to become overwhelmed by emotion, especially in a situation where all your adrenaline and similar hormones are pumping so high you could climb the goal posts and back flip into the crowd.  I don’t know about you, but listening to what seems like the entire population of a city singing your praises would make me a little giddy and I don’t think a gesture of celebration that isn’t filled with arrogance or threat should be penalized. 

Hell, I do a little dance when I pop my first beer on the Saturday before a Gator game.

This season has had too many games decided in the booth or by people without pads, a trend that seems most prevalent in the SEC this year, and I honestly believe that if it isn’t nipped in the bud, BCS rankings won’t be the only controversy this year.  Can you imagine the fallout if one of these questionable calls robs Florida or their opponent of the National Championship?  We would see Pasadena in flames before the night was out and the media would be calling for the heads of every official involved in the NCAA.  Do yourself a favor refs, get that new contact lens prescription.  Don’t be afraid to double check with another official.  Have a conversation with the booth.

Overall, though, take the whistles and shove them straight up your brown highway, especially late in games when a ticky-tacky call ruins not only a team’s chances to win, but the momentum and pace of a great football game.  The fourth quarter, hell the whole game, is too much fun to watch and shouldn’t be subjected to someone looking to over rule the action unreasonably.

I mean, I know the speed limit is 70, but if I got pulled over for going 72 I’d be pretty miffed about it and I don’t even have to worry about all the fans and teammates I’d let down.

Pull it together refs, because the NCAA and BCS have enough controversy without you guys vying for some of the glory.

Josh Bauer is a Columnist for GatorTailgating.com