replay ref in OU- Oregon game getting death threats

[Russ Smith]

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/or...sports/1158639907304430.xml&coll=7&thispage=1

Just part of this story.

Canzano: Official wasn't shown all replays shown on TV

T he seventh threatening telephone call at Gordon Riese's home came a few minutes after eight o'clock on Monday morning. It was from an Oklahoma fan who told Riese, the Pacific-10 Conference replay official from Saturday's Ducks-Sooners game, he was going to fly to Portland, find the family home, and kill Riese and his wife.

"I called the police," said Riese, 64, "then, I unplugged the phone."

The deputy who arrived to take the report assured Riese that murderers don't typically alert their victims before flying in from out of state to commit the crime. Then, the deputy added, "Maybe you should leave town for a couple of days, if it makes you feel better."

Football is a game, you're thinking.

Right up to the point where an Oregon player touches an onside-kick attempt a step too early, turning the scramble for the ball into a melee where players are rushing the field celebrating, and the ball is squirting through everyone's legs like they were wickets in a human croquet match. Then, the officials on the field blow the call. Then, the review process, instituted to rectify situations just like this, upholds the bad call, causing many of us, including some self-important university president at Oklahoma, to wonder, "Was Mr. Magoo in the replay booth?"

Well, no.

It was Gordon Riese in the booth. He has a name, he has a life. And after visiting with him on Monday, and learning more from some others about what happened in that review booth, I'm convinced that every honk who criticized Riese in the last 72 hours owes the man a swift apology.

Said Riese: "I'm having a difficult time letting the blown call go. I always prided myself on getting it right. I didn't get the job done. I didn't get it right."

Apparently they didn't have the correct angle to show him in the replay booth so he made his decision based on an angle that didn't reveal the ball was touched before 10 yards, the angle he saw it appears the ball hits an OU players helmet first, but the other angle shows conclusively it did NOT touch the OU player. Riese never saw that angle and was under intense pressure to make a quick decision and the result was a bad call.

What really irritates me here is it's clear that even the guys in the booth at ABC knew that he wasn't seeing all the replays they were and yet they continued to complain about what a horrible call it was and how could they miss that completely inflaming the situation when they knew the guy hadn't seen the replay they were showing.

 

[Dback Jon]

David Boren is an ass - and so are the Oklosers that are making death threats. It's a game. Yes, he screwed up, but he also did the best he could with the angles shown him.

 

[Chaplin]

I understand that Oklahoma is pretty ticked off, but they really need to step in here. It's a college football game and idiot OK fans are calling officials with death threats?

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

Maybe the Sooners shouldn't have given up over 500 yards in offense, then they wouldn't have had to worry about the refs.

I've said it before and will say it again - losers blame the refs, winners overcome officiating.

 

[Russ Smith]

I understand that Oklahoma is pretty ticked off, but they really need to step in here. It's a college football game and idiot OK fans are calling officials with death threats?

That's why I"m mad at ABC if their announcers KNEW the guy hadn't seen that angle why did they continually show it and then say "how did they miss that call?" Just completely unfair.

Apparently some OU message boards got the refs home phone number and posted it after the game and that's what led to the death threats.

But to me if Dan Fouts or whoever is on ABC saying folks it was a bad call but the replay ref never saw this angle, maybe it mitigates some of this?

And as Mao said, maybe if OU doesn't give up those 2 TD's at the end of the game this is a moot point?

 

[boisesuns]

That's why I"m mad at ABC if their announcers KNEW the guy hadn't seen that angle why did they continually show it and then say "how did they miss that call?" Just completely unfair.

Apparently some OU message boards got the refs home phone number and posted it after the game and that's what led to the death threats.

But to me if Dan Fouts or whoever is on ABC saying folks it was a bad call but the replay ref never saw this angle, maybe it mitigates some of this?

And as Mao said, maybe if OU doesn't give up those 2 TD's at the end of the game this is a moot point?

The ABC announcers for that game announced the game like it was an Oklahoma broadcast.

 

[Russ Smith]

The ABC announcers for that game announced the game like it was an Oklahoma broadcast.

Wasn't it Fouts though who played at Oregon?

I'm blanking on it but I was pretty sure he worked that game?

 

[boisesuns]

I don't remember, but it seemed like the Olahoma love was flowing.

 

[ajcardfan]

Wasn't it Fouts though who played at Oregon?

I'm blanking on it but I was pretty sure he worked that game?

Yeah, it was Fouts. He was complaining the loudest about it. I always thought that he was a good color analyst. But, he now seems to be splitting the play-by-play and color with the other guy there. It seemed to me that he was trying to be much more balanced than he had been for Oregon games in the past when he was with Keith Jackson.

 

[Russ Smith]

Yeah, it was Fouts. He was complaining the loudest about it. I always thought that he was a good color analyst. But, he now seems to be splitting the play-by-play and color with the other guy there. It seemed to me that he was trying to be much more balanced than he had been for Oregon games in the past when he was with Keith Jackson.

And that's probably why I was blanking on it. HE worked the first Oregon game against Stanford and was blatantly cheering for Oregon talking about how happy he was for the QB Dixon and the RB Stewart etc. I don't have a huge problem with him being a homer but if he knows the replay ref has NOT seen the angle they're showing, it's just plain unfair to keep ripping the guy.

 

[Scot1]

Fallacious Adage

I've said it before and will say it again - losers blame the refs, winners overcome officiating.

I've seen this saying on this board a lot, and I have to point out that it's simply wrong.

Wrong literally, of course--Oregon 'won', but not by overcoming officiating, they won with the help of officiating. The 'losers' blamed the refs, but they are plain right, on the side of the gods, etc.

The moral is wrong, too. Sure, if you're a team that's head and shoulders above the competition, you should and will win, unless the refs do an especially appalling job. You can overcome the officiating, no sweat--or maybe with some extra sweat. But in many games, the teams aren't all that far apart in talent, etc. And momentum is important, and that can be changed decisively by one call, especially pass interference. In those many cases, if one side benefits from a bad call, they're the winners. The other side, maybe the somewhat better team with a neutral ref crew, isn't better than the benefitted side plus the refs.

This is obvious--sorry to preach on. It's the justification for the replay system, so if the problem wasn't clearly significant, we wouldn't have that. But you can't say that the losing team should be blamed and deserve the L1 outcome, unless you live in a Hollywood movie.

 

[MaoTosiFanClub]

So Oklahoma didn't have a shot to stop Oregon after the onside kick? And they didn't have a shot at a game-winning FG? Oh yeah they did, plus the Sooners had all afternoon to slow down Oregon's offense which they neglected to do.

Any coach will tell you when in an opposing gym, field, stadium, etc. that you need to go and and take the win and not rely on the refs because there will inevitably be calls that go against you. That's just life on the road in sports and why there is such a discrepancy between home and away W-L records. The crowds have an effect on officials just like they do on players.

 

[Scot1]

I mostly agree with what you say, but it doesn't support the truism you recited in the earlier post.

Sure, OK could've performed better, overcome the bad calls, and won. Sure, coaches know that, and know that they have to achieve a definitely superior performance to have any assurance of a win. The fact remains, often they can't, because of a nearly equal performance on the other side. (By performance, I mean the outcome of talent, coaching, motivation, luck--the whole ball of wax, apart from the refs. Yes, Bob Stoops can give a great half-time speech, but the Oregon coach can give a pretty great one, too--etc....) After the whole ball of wax, if the two performances are only, say, 3 points apart, a bad call can make 7 points of difference, and that swings the game away from the otherwise better team. Yes, a team that's a much better performer on gameday will go in and win, but in lots of cases they aren't enough better to pull it off.

So the 'better team' loses. I think your point about home advantage supports my argument--I swear that almost every team visiting an opponent comes in knowing that they have to give special effort to overcome homefield advantage, and yet they often lose, because of biased calls, which is exactly my point. (Of course, they lose because of fan noise, protecting home turf, etc., too--I'm reluctant to think refs are so bad as to create the discrepancy all by themselves--but maybe so.)

I agree that OK can blame itself for not scoring on every drive and rendering the bad calls moot, or simply stopping or slowing one of the scoring drives. But all of that wouldn't have changed the W into an L without the refs' mistakes, so they performed well enough to win with accurate calls, and so the refs are to blame that they didn't.

I certainly agree that they should realize that the world isn't perfect, losing because of the refs on occasion is inevitable in the game, and they should suck it up instead of acting like idiots.

 

[Russ Smith]

I see both points. I learned this a long time ago in 1985 as a then diehard Cardinal fan watching Don Denkinger blow a call that in my mind cost the Cards the World Series. Nevermind that the Cards still could have won that game 6 after the call, or could have won game 7 the next day. Sure mentally the impact of that call hurt but the fact is a great team could have and probably would have overcome that call. Denkinger blew it, take away the call and the Cards PROBABLY win, but it's not a lock.

Oregon got a huge break, probably two since the PI call appears to have been bad since it appears an OU lineman deflected the pass prior to the PI, but OU still could have overcome that.

I think it's awful that games are impacted by such mistakes but I think OU has gone over the top by demanding the game be wiped out and saying they won't play the Pac 10 again unless they can bring Big 12 refs. They're outright saying the refs cheated and we already know that's not true the replay ref simply never saw the angle that showed conclusively the call was wrong, he wasn't biased he simply didn't have the right angle.