What goes around should come around when it comes to SEC officiating

If the SEC can fine schools for fans storming the field, why can't schools fine the SEC when officials make the wrong calls. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky 20-13 victory over Florida in Lexington on Saturday night has triggered a very large fine from the SEC Office. Actually, allowing fans to storm Kroger Field after the victory is what generated the fine.

To be more precise about why the $250,000 fine was levied here’s what the SEC policy actually says: “Access to competition areas shall be limited to participating student-athletes, coaches, officials, support personnel and properly credentialed individuals at all times. For the safety of participants and spectators alike, at no time before, during or after a contest shall spectators be permitted to enter the competition area. It is the responsibility of each member institution to implement procedures to ensure compliance with this policy.”

The SEC has a tiered fine structure that charges a school $50,000 for the first offense, $100,000  for the second offense, and $250,000 for the third offense.

That seems pretty stiff to me, especially coming from an SEC administrative office that can’t seem to get the field officials (referees) to perform at a competent level. Time and time again SEC officiating crews have blown critical calls in close games that resulted in a team losing a game that they could have/should have won because of the ineptitude of the officiating crews.

The SEC’s thinking on the fine for a member school allowing fans to storm the field seems to be that this could be a safety issue and is a controllable situation and the school responsible to control the situation has allowed it to happen again resulting in the escalated fine (in UK’s situation $250,000). I would like to see SEC commissioner Greg Sankey use that same logic in approaching the continued egregious errors that his officiating crews continue to make weekly officiating SEC games.

Kentucky fans can still remember several poor calls over the last few years that have cost UK football dearly against teams like Florida.

Kentucky is not the only SEC school to suffer from SEC officiating incompetence. SEC officiating’s most recent gaffe in September most likely cost Mississippi State a win against regional rival Memphis from the American Athletic Conference. In the fourth quarter Memphis punted the ball to MSU and MSU apparently downed the ball and the Back Judge gave the inadvertent signal to stop the play and the clock.

A Memphis player picked up the ball and as everyone else stopped play the Memphis player returned the ball for a touchdown. It was later ruled that the ball was actually still a live ball although the Back Judge appeared to blow the play dead. Per the SEC office, the play should have been reviewed at the time and overturned but was not.

To make matters worse Memphis had two players wearing the same number during that play. That also should have been an illegal participation penalty. The SEC Office admitted after the game that the officiating crew made three very serious errors on that one play which ultimately cost Mississippi State the win in a very close 31-29 game.

Now here’s my point. All of those errors were controllable and correctable, as have been all the many errors in past seasons, but they were not corrected and that’s not the first time it’s happened in the SEC. It wasn’t even the only time that weekend.

In the Penn State/Auburn game that same weekend the SEC Officiating crew forced Penn State to punt on third down because they somehow thought it was fourth down. That error is also reviewable and correctable but for whatever reason, the decision was not reviewed and overturned and Penn State had to live with the officiating error.

By my count that is three errors on the same play in the Mississippi State game and two errors on the same play in the Auburn game. According to Sankey’s scale that he uses for schools not performing to the level that they should in controlling fans the SEC Office should be on the hook for, oh say, $400,00 in fines on the Mississippi State gaffe and an additional $150,000 for the two occurrences in the Auburn game.

That only seems fair to me. After all, how will SEC Head of Officiating John McDaid get any better at his job unless he feels the pain of his mistakes. That seems to be the logic Sankey is using with his member institutions.

To borrow an old cliche, “What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.”  I’m not really sure what that cliche means but I think it means “what goes around should come around” and in this case it should come around to SEC Officiating in spades.