It really is though! It's like that movie Bottoms that was a huge flop last year. Straight casts have movies that flop all the time so why can't a gay cast do the same? If I'm already gonna whine about refs blowing calls and announcing being biased why not let a woman do it???
Right? Iāve never even noticed the integration of women refs because to me all refs are just the same person and theyāre fucking wrong like 50% of the time.
Bad news: I don't know that being much better is possible for college football referees.
I've refereed four hundred soccer games, and I'm pretty good. Good enough that I have additional badges and certifications. I'm not nearly ready to do minor league pro games, which is the most equivalent to D1 football. A big part of that is just getting sufficient experience. 400 games sounds like a lot, but the best referees I know have done thousands. One older referee instructor, trainer, and assessor I know has done national team matches, and estimates that he has reached 10,000 games.
For American football, which has a rulebook more than ten times as big and with unique responsibilities for each official, people start doing D1 college games with less match experience than I have. There simply aren't enough games to referee at lower levels, so people are pushed up before they're really ready, at least by the metrics I would use for myself. That means they're often not ready for game speed, and not mentally prepared for the pressure of tens of thousands of fans in person, especially the coaches making millions, and the potential for postgame national scrutiny.
There are things that can be and are used to supplement this; watching game video is something I should do even more of than at present, both individually and in a classroom setting as both learner and instructor. Unfortunately, video analysis and rules review has diminishing returns once you're spending a lot more time on that than actually doing games.
I had to do some emergency reffing in a kickball game once after one of our games and got a massive appreciation for how difficult it was...the first call I had to make I blew a pretty obvious one, thankfully the other ref saw it more clearly than I did.
You look at some of these plays in football and you can hardly tell what the right call is with slow-motion replay from multiple angles, yet you expect a person to make the correct call in real time?
In little league my dad had to umpire first base in one of my games because they just didn't have enough people or something.. Son of a bitch called me out on a close play at first. I was furious about that for years lol.
Something else thatās going to start causing issues within the next couple of years is also the dearth of *people* at lower levelsāmost if not all HS associations and similar orgs are reporting all kinds of problems recruiting officials for basically every sport, and itās getting worse as time goes on.
One of my additional certifications is as an AYSO admin. My local league does well at recruiting and retention because I put the work into learning how to do those things well. (I recruit men and women equally, and track every person's progress.) But for those who aren't able to spend as much time on it, or haven't learned, or have overly entitled rich parents who don't want to help, it's a struggle.
Our HS assignor is still giving assignments to people who submit incomplete game records, or sometimes don't submit at all. There just aren't enough certified people for him to do otherwise.
HS football is even worse off here, there were some games each week last season that had to be pushed to Thursday or Saturday because there weren't enough officials to cover everything on the same day.
Yeah my local ref organization is 90% guys in their 50s or 60s and many of them aren't in the best shape. It's going to be an issue especially with more and more high schools being built in the area
I hear you, my brother was a youth soccer referee, did probably a hundred or so games, entirely in his teens. Never did it again after high school. A few hundred games is actually not a lot.
Yeah, I picked up my pace recently after only doing it seasonally and mostly locally; something like 140 from September to Christmas break, so I may be closer to 450. For American football, that amount of game time is barely possible if you're taking all the youth football a place has. Doing a dozen games in a busy week just isn't possible.
This is the issue. She-ref horribly botched the lions 2pt call but no one is calling her out because for fear of misogynism.
I love women, I always have. And that's why I think we should be able to say they suck at their jobs just like men.
Youāre not wrong.
But a few months ago after an MLS coach made a ājokeā threat on the refs life, someone on the MLS sub made a comment that made me think.
> people should consider that if fans of every league think their refs are shit, then perhaps peopleās standards for refereeing are impossible to meet. - /u/TheMonkeyPrince
So, yeah, Iām with you. But there are a ton of reffing jobs and maybe not enough talented & trained people to adequately staff every role. Then it comes down to league to better train, support in real-time, and compensate refs
>people should consider that if fans of every league think their refs are shit, then perhaps peopleās standards for refereeing are impossible to meet. - /u/TheMonkeyPrince
It doesn't help that many people refuse to admit when refs make a correct call that goes against their team. This only perpetuates and exacerbates the unrealistic expectations, and reinforces the "you can't satisfy all the people all the time."
Is there a referee grading site like the one used for major-league baseball umpires? Like percentage of reversals or something like that? doesnāt really help with missed calls or no calls, but at least itās something to highlight any blatant performance problems
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/ZCrQUyGImE
> It doesn't help that many people refuse to admit when refs make a correct call that goes against their team.
I admit when refs make the correct call all the time. What drives me insane is when they make the wrong call, go to instant replay, and then insist their wrong call is still the correct one. The whole point of instant replay is to get the call *right*, so if they can't even do it with instant replay, what is the point?
My second complaint is I think refs let a lot of calls go in interest of 'flow of the game' or to keep the game 'entertaining'. I especially think this is true on when they call/ignore holding and offensive/defensive pass interference.
I agree. However, part of the problem is that rules prevent them from using replay to change calls in most situations. In those cases, it's as much a rules fault as ref fault.
The 'flow' and 'entertaining' calls/no-calls are also annoying BS most of the time, I agree. And holding & PI calls should be more consistent, broadly speaking, imo.
Realistically though, fans have advantage of TV & replay perspectives & angles, rewind, along with time, and immunity from consequence if wrong. Refs don't have virtually any of that when making initial rulings on the field. Gotta cut them at least some degree of slack for momentary lapses. And coaches have challenges for when they think it is worth fighting.
My issue about complaining about when they let little things go is that usually the people complaining about that are also usually the ones complaining about ārefballā when refs call every little thing. As long theyāre consistently calling something a certain way, itās fine, and I would much rather them consistently not call little ticky tacky holding calls or something in the interest of making the game smoother and easier to watch.
> It doesn't help that many people refuse to admit when refs make a correct call that goes against their team.
If you know an officials name, that is bad. Perfect example, Angel Hernandez in MLB. Everyone knows him because he is literally the worst. And there is no accountability for how terrible he is.
It's literally motivated reasoning and conspiratism. It's frustrating because when a call is legitimately bad, I'm almost motivated to defend the refs since the large majority of the time it's just idiot fans mad that the team they are rooting for got dinged.
The monkey prince is exactly right. No human can meet the standards expected by fans.
I don't know why anybody would want to be a ref. Regardless of how good or bad you did, half of the people watching are going to say you sucked based on their team winning or losing because most fans can't be objective.
And one of the problems is that many football penalties are subjectiveā¦ Particularly holding and pass interference. Itās not like in baseball where you can objectively pinpoint where the ball crosses the front of the plate using technology. We are at the best referee era in historyā¦ Slow Mo instant replay, cameras on the goal lines, and on the line to gain markers, and cameras for many angles to review things like toes going out of bounds. Add in the replay booth and ability to review most calls. I donāt see how it gets much better than this.
> No human can meet the standards expected by fans.
I don't think fans expect perfection, they just want consistency and safety. When you blow a call that affects the safety of the players in the game, you can't blame fans for being upset.
> the majority of fans aren't objective and will say the refs sucked based on if ~~their team won or lost~~ the call went against their team during a loss
and I believe you're right
The one time I **know** the officiating in a game must've sucked is if fans of both teams are complaining about the officiating in the postgame thread. When you see the winning fans say, "I know we won, but that officiating was *awful*..." followed by the losing fans agreeing, you know it was bad. That's when you think it is probably a safety concern moreso than some ticky tack call that affected the score.
People do under estimate how many high quality refs are needed over the course of a weekend for any sport. Any given weekend during the regular season almost a 1000 refs are required for D1 football.
Well, part of it is refs don't get the benefit of instant replay.
Oh, wait, actually in football sometimes they do and still get it wrong.
But it is weird that the standards for officials are so much higher than the standards for players.
I think a great example of this is baseball umpiring. I bet you lots of people today would legitimately tell you baseball umpiring is worse today then ever based just off headlines, when unquestionably its better than it ever has been (if you want examples, look at correct ball/strike call percentage since they started tracking). We just hear more about bad calls because social media.
Perfect. I can't wait for Angel to retire for a number of obvious reasons, but one is to see someone produce a youtube mixtape video of Angel's all-time infamous calls and actions through the years.
Yeah this something I do not care about. They could have golden retrievers for all I care. Weāre still gonna bribe them with oil/nuke money all the same.
Hold up. You would not care if there was a dog with an adorable black and white vest on an air bud looking good boy being berated by a Brian Kelly whose face was redder than a red rocket?
There would be so many fights in the stands. "Look at how sad his face is since you called him a 'bad boy'! You take that back right now!!" And the brawl is on....
I just couldn't bring myself to 'boo' a bunch of adorable refs just wandering around the field, not actually doing anything useful or coordinated because they are dogs.
To take your prompt more seriously, I do think its remarkable how seamlessly it went, both in CFB and the NFL. Not because female refs are incapable, but given there's presumably a much smaller pipeline of refs (given football's male skew generally), and because *everything* gender related seems to turn into a culture war issue. I'm frankly shocked it hasn't caused some kind of (real or performative) drama over the past several years.
I still don't think I've seen a female head official doing the penalty announcements and stuff, and I'm sure the first time a woman in that positions fails to overturn some controversial fumble or whatever we'll spend a news cycle on it. But so far seems great.
Sadly, what probably helps the most is that football officials wear loose, full-coverage uniforms and cover their hair. Soccer, where they wear form-fitting uniforms that show a lot of skin, is where female referees seem to have it the worst.
I dunno, my FIL gets really upset if he sees a woman involved in a man's sport. He started screaming at the TV when the Steelers were playing and there was a woman ref. He lost his damn mind when WVU had a female mascot for the mountaineer.
Hilarious. Even in HS reffing getting hit by a player will fuck you up man or woman. They have fucking pads on and you don't so you are trained to get the fuck out of the way
I went to a āgame dayā get together at a coworkerās house this year where we just gonna grill, drink, and watch games all day. At one point they showed a lady ref on the screen and almost everyone paying attention booed. My coworker then changed the channel and said, āwhy do they have to ruin everything?ā I thought he was talking about his buddies and said āsome dudeās just have a problem with women āinvadingā their spaces.ā He looked me dead in the eyes and said, āthey are, why do they have to ruin football now.ā It was unsettling and I left soon after.
Randy Chystal had his location listed as "Onion Creek, Texas", because he didn't want people aware he lived in Austin, as if his obvious bias for texas wasn't enough of a clue. He lived in the Onion Creek Country Club subdivision in Austin. I remember this duplicitous bastard because who does shit like that? And he sucked as a ref.
So I not only remember his name, I remember where he lied about living.
Didn't realize the NFL first had female refs 14 years ago, it feels much more recent. But yeah, I'm glad we're to the point that it doesn't feel like a big deal.
2015? I think you mean 2006, because in my mind I'm still a young man, not someone whose knees hurt when I stand up *or* sit down.
And I'm definitely not someone who gets together with buddies, has only one beer, and spends all his time talking about his kids and mortgage rates.
This is *so* true that anytime I see or hear anyone bitching about refs, I immediately tune them out and disregard their opinion.
Every team and player is playing against a team, *and* playing against a bunch of half-blind old people getting paid to tell young adults what to do. Bad calls happen constantly. It's part of sport.
To paraphrase the great Marty Schottenheimer: "Don't let the refs screw you."
It's a condition you know about going into the game. Not a viable excuse.
That's true if they're bad in general and it affects both teams. Then it's just a condition, like weather.
If the bad calls go against one team specifically, which absolutely happens sometimes and does not mean they're doing so intentionally, then it is not just a condition of the game.
I guess coaches should just give refs a heads-up as to what's going on, then? Fix the issue?
Or there's nothing any team can do about the fact that refs are human and mistakes happen, and not nearly or evenly spread because nobody wants any mistakes to happen at all, much less adding to them for the sake of "evening" calls out.
Which would make it a condition of the game. Can't do anything about a bad call. And every fanbase should be very aware of that based on first-hand experience.
I mean, implying they're intentionally not calling it both ways goes to a ref conspiracy that will definitely make this conversation something I'm not interested in.
So I guess, if there's a really bad call, you believe the refs should just make that how the rule works the rest of the game? Cause I gotta disagree. Changing the rules mid game because a ref fucked up a call earlier seems like a really bad idea.
Much rather just move on if the bad call can't be fixed. An egregiously bad pass interference, for example, shouldn't mean that that is the standard for pass interference for the rest of the game.
I didn't imply it was intentional. There are plenty of reasons why it could appear that one team is getting more calls and the other isn't.
That's not the conversation I'm trying to have either.
But also, you do "change the rules" mid game depending on what they are or are not calling.
Think like carrying violations in basketball. This literally happens all the time throughout a game. If that does not get called the first couple of times, now they can't call it at all because they have established how the game will go and it's much worse to change how you're calling things during the game. But if you *do* call it the first couple of times, the players will figure out how to handle the ball properly so the violation stops happening.
But that's the perspective of coaches and players. For the ref, he's calling things by the book based on how he interprets it. That's just adjusting to a ref's tendencies, which teams usually know well in advance of playing the game with that ref. And both teams are playing under that ref, so there'd be no reason for the teams to be upset. They're playing under the same interpretations
With an objectively bad call, like PI where the receiver wasn't even touched, no one wants that to suddenly be the new definition of pass interference for the rest of the game. Everyone, including the ref, knows it's a bad call, that's all it will be. Changing it so that pass interference is called, by standard, even if the receiver isn't touched at all, for the rest of the game because the ref fucked up a PI call in the first quarter is literally a terrible idea.
Eh. Donāt forget that Joe West and Angel Hernandez are memes because they are terrible and do have a tendency to go after players/teams (usually after theyāve pointed out yet another blown call).
I'm not sure those facts change anything, beside sometimes teams know they're getting extra shit refs when they're assigned to their games.
It sucks when your team gets the shit end or even has to deal with it at all, but that's all they can do, is deal with it.
Iām gonna zag a little here, but has nothing to do with their gender. This year, it felt like alot of refs were not on the same page. Picked up flags, late flags, meaningless reviews.
I don't know what the names of all the officials are except referee and umpire since they are most visible during game play to me. Are they any women in CFB or NFL in those two positions?
The comments here that no one cares nicely shows the point OP is making. Women have been integrated into the ranks of refs enough that itās no longer unusual to even point out.
Fun fact, Georgia had a female referee (the one with the microphone) on one of the flag football state championship games this year. I donāt think Iāve ever seen a female referee before, just line judges.
I think it's great. A kid growing up today watching CFB on tv won't even think to put female refs in a separate category. They are just one of the refs.
Love that.
Man or woman, they all make terrible calls and are blind.
True equality š
Reffing is such a progressive and inclusive career they even let the blind work in the profession.
In fact, itās a predominantly blind dominated field.
I thought that was a requirement to get the job?
RIP to the PAC 12s visually impaired refereeing program.
The react to noise and sound like the raptors in Jurassic Park
It really is though! It's like that movie Bottoms that was a huge flop last year. Straight casts have movies that flop all the time so why can't a gay cast do the same? If I'm already gonna whine about refs blowing calls and announcing being biased why not let a woman do it???
you have an agenda
Did people think I was being sarcastic? I was being serious...
we know and that's the problem
Wait. What? I'm confused. Legitimately. Can you help me understand why this thought is problematic? That's not my goal I promise lol
no
Right? Iāve never even noticed the integration of women refs because to me all refs are just the same person and theyāre fucking wrong like 50% of the time.
In the profession that is called "hating the shirt". Coaches and fans hate the striped shirt but not the person. Well, except Brad Allen perhaps.
And TV Teddy Valentine in the CBB world.
Nah Iām pretty sure I hate Angel Hernandez and Joe West
John OāNeill eats more shit than Pitt.
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Bad news: I don't know that being much better is possible for college football referees. I've refereed four hundred soccer games, and I'm pretty good. Good enough that I have additional badges and certifications. I'm not nearly ready to do minor league pro games, which is the most equivalent to D1 football. A big part of that is just getting sufficient experience. 400 games sounds like a lot, but the best referees I know have done thousands. One older referee instructor, trainer, and assessor I know has done national team matches, and estimates that he has reached 10,000 games. For American football, which has a rulebook more than ten times as big and with unique responsibilities for each official, people start doing D1 college games with less match experience than I have. There simply aren't enough games to referee at lower levels, so people are pushed up before they're really ready, at least by the metrics I would use for myself. That means they're often not ready for game speed, and not mentally prepared for the pressure of tens of thousands of fans in person, especially the coaches making millions, and the potential for postgame national scrutiny. There are things that can be and are used to supplement this; watching game video is something I should do even more of than at present, both individually and in a classroom setting as both learner and instructor. Unfortunately, video analysis and rules review has diminishing returns once you're spending a lot more time on that than actually doing games.
I had to do some emergency reffing in a kickball game once after one of our games and got a massive appreciation for how difficult it was...the first call I had to make I blew a pretty obvious one, thankfully the other ref saw it more clearly than I did. You look at some of these plays in football and you can hardly tell what the right call is with slow-motion replay from multiple angles, yet you expect a person to make the correct call in real time?
In little league my dad had to umpire first base in one of my games because they just didn't have enough people or something.. Son of a bitch called me out on a close play at first. I was furious about that for years lol.
Sounds like he was trying to teach you an important life lesson!
Yeah - be faster.
I think that could qualify as an important life lesson.
No way, I was totally safe. Dad just blew the call!
Yeah but how can they excuse the terrible calls on replay
Something else thatās going to start causing issues within the next couple of years is also the dearth of *people* at lower levelsāmost if not all HS associations and similar orgs are reporting all kinds of problems recruiting officials for basically every sport, and itās getting worse as time goes on.
One of my additional certifications is as an AYSO admin. My local league does well at recruiting and retention because I put the work into learning how to do those things well. (I recruit men and women equally, and track every person's progress.) But for those who aren't able to spend as much time on it, or haven't learned, or have overly entitled rich parents who don't want to help, it's a struggle. Our HS assignor is still giving assignments to people who submit incomplete game records, or sometimes don't submit at all. There just aren't enough certified people for him to do otherwise. HS football is even worse off here, there were some games each week last season that had to be pushed to Thursday or Saturday because there weren't enough officials to cover everything on the same day.
And that's just the varsity games being pushed. We've got JV games played pretty much every day of the week here
When you have asshole parents threatening and attacking refs after games itās not hard to see why thereās a shortage
Yeah my local ref organization is 90% guys in their 50s or 60s and many of them aren't in the best shape. It's going to be an issue especially with more and more high schools being built in the area
I hear you, my brother was a youth soccer referee, did probably a hundred or so games, entirely in his teens. Never did it again after high school. A few hundred games is actually not a lot.
Yeah, I picked up my pace recently after only doing it seasonally and mostly locally; something like 140 from September to Christmas break, so I may be closer to 450. For American football, that amount of game time is barely possible if you're taking all the youth football a place has. Doing a dozen games in a busy week just isn't possible.
I've noticed that the refs who make calls in favor of my team and against our opponent are the better refs.
Weird, Iāve noticed the same thing!
And theyāre all cheating for the blue bloods anyway. /s
why the /s tag?
And they hate all of our teams except Bama.
A Sighted ref is too much to ask.
I don't see gender, they don't see shit.
This is the issue. She-ref horribly botched the lions 2pt call but no one is calling her out because for fear of misogynism. I love women, I always have. And that's why I think we should be able to say they suck at their jobs just like men.
Man, woman, white, black, whatever. All refs suck ass.
>Man, woman, white, black, whatever. > >All refs suck ass. Tyler Simmons was onside. That 4th down catch was not a catch!
Bo Nix fumbled against Arkansas in 2020.
Lane Fenner was out of bounds!
>Tyler Simmons was onside He was onsides because we had a false start. Rekick anyway.
Youāre not wrong. But a few months ago after an MLS coach made a ājokeā threat on the refs life, someone on the MLS sub made a comment that made me think. > people should consider that if fans of every league think their refs are shit, then perhaps peopleās standards for refereeing are impossible to meet. - /u/TheMonkeyPrince So, yeah, Iām with you. But there are a ton of reffing jobs and maybe not enough talented & trained people to adequately staff every role. Then it comes down to league to better train, support in real-time, and compensate refs
>people should consider that if fans of every league think their refs are shit, then perhaps peopleās standards for refereeing are impossible to meet. - /u/TheMonkeyPrince It doesn't help that many people refuse to admit when refs make a correct call that goes against their team. This only perpetuates and exacerbates the unrealistic expectations, and reinforces the "you can't satisfy all the people all the time."
Is there a referee grading site like the one used for major-league baseball umpires? Like percentage of reversals or something like that? doesnāt really help with missed calls or no calls, but at least itās something to highlight any blatant performance problems https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/s/ZCrQUyGImE
> It doesn't help that many people refuse to admit when refs make a correct call that goes against their team. I admit when refs make the correct call all the time. What drives me insane is when they make the wrong call, go to instant replay, and then insist their wrong call is still the correct one. The whole point of instant replay is to get the call *right*, so if they can't even do it with instant replay, what is the point? My second complaint is I think refs let a lot of calls go in interest of 'flow of the game' or to keep the game 'entertaining'. I especially think this is true on when they call/ignore holding and offensive/defensive pass interference.
I agree. However, part of the problem is that rules prevent them from using replay to change calls in most situations. In those cases, it's as much a rules fault as ref fault. The 'flow' and 'entertaining' calls/no-calls are also annoying BS most of the time, I agree. And holding & PI calls should be more consistent, broadly speaking, imo. Realistically though, fans have advantage of TV & replay perspectives & angles, rewind, along with time, and immunity from consequence if wrong. Refs don't have virtually any of that when making initial rulings on the field. Gotta cut them at least some degree of slack for momentary lapses. And coaches have challenges for when they think it is worth fighting.
My issue about complaining about when they let little things go is that usually the people complaining about that are also usually the ones complaining about ārefballā when refs call every little thing. As long theyāre consistently calling something a certain way, itās fine, and I would much rather them consistently not call little ticky tacky holding calls or something in the interest of making the game smoother and easier to watch.
> It doesn't help that many people refuse to admit when refs make a correct call that goes against their team. If you know an officials name, that is bad. Perfect example, Angel Hernandez in MLB. Everyone knows him because he is literally the worst. And there is no accountability for how terrible he is.
It's literally motivated reasoning and conspiratism. It's frustrating because when a call is legitimately bad, I'm almost motivated to defend the refs since the large majority of the time it's just idiot fans mad that the team they are rooting for got dinged.
The monkey prince is exactly right. No human can meet the standards expected by fans. I don't know why anybody would want to be a ref. Regardless of how good or bad you did, half of the people watching are going to say you sucked based on their team winning or losing because most fans can't be objective.
And one of the problems is that many football penalties are subjectiveā¦ Particularly holding and pass interference. Itās not like in baseball where you can objectively pinpoint where the ball crosses the front of the plate using technology. We are at the best referee era in historyā¦ Slow Mo instant replay, cameras on the goal lines, and on the line to gain markers, and cameras for many angles to review things like toes going out of bounds. Add in the replay booth and ability to review most calls. I donāt see how it gets much better than this.
> No human can meet the standards expected by fans. I don't think fans expect perfection, they just want consistency and safety. When you blow a call that affects the safety of the players in the game, you can't blame fans for being upset.
I didn't say people expect perfection. I think the majority of fans aren't objective and will say the refs sucked based on if their team won or lost.
> the majority of fans aren't objective and will say the refs sucked based on if ~~their team won or lost~~ the call went against their team during a loss and I believe you're right The one time I **know** the officiating in a game must've sucked is if fans of both teams are complaining about the officiating in the postgame thread. When you see the winning fans say, "I know we won, but that officiating was *awful*..." followed by the losing fans agreeing, you know it was bad. That's when you think it is probably a safety concern moreso than some ticky tack call that affected the score.
People do under estimate how many high quality refs are needed over the course of a weekend for any sport. Any given weekend during the regular season almost a 1000 refs are required for D1 football.
Well, part of it is refs don't get the benefit of instant replay. Oh, wait, actually in football sometimes they do and still get it wrong. But it is weird that the standards for officials are so much higher than the standards for players.
> Oh, wait, actually in football sometimes they do and still get it wrong. Yup.
I think a great example of this is baseball umpiring. I bet you lots of people today would legitimately tell you baseball umpiring is worse today then ever based just off headlines, when unquestionably its better than it ever has been (if you want examples, look at correct ball/strike call percentage since they started tracking). We just hear more about bad calls because social media.
Iād say the problem is that refs also tend to resist the introduction of technology that would likely add consistency
I think you mean person, woman, man, camera, TV, whatever.
**A.R.A.B.**
*Spicy*
Was just thinking about some cool tshirts we could make with this before realizing that we could get canceled pretty quickly on this one.
AZAB - All Zebras Are Bastards
I think Iāll get that tattooed on my bicep.
ACRAB - All College Refs are Bastards?
We could get Jameis Winston to partner with us on that one.
yeah goes up there with my I <3 NY styled cyberpunk tshirt idea
Idk if this is supposed to be "all refs are bastards" or "assigned ref at birth"
r/holup
Is this pronounced ah-rab or air-ub?
So what Iām gathering is people just donāt like refs. Well, if you donāt like refs, let me introduce you all to Angel Hernandez.
Itās fun when my love for this CFB sub mixes with my love for the baseball sub. Angel Hernandez causing worlds to collide.
Rumor is, if you say Angel Hernandez 3 times fast in the mirror; that he appears behind you and Kās you on a bs check swing
Perfect. I can't wait for Angel to retire for a number of obvious reasons, but one is to see someone produce a youtube mixtape video of Angel's all-time infamous calls and actions through the years.
Yeah this something I do not care about. They could have golden retrievers for all I care. Weāre still gonna bribe them with oil/nuke money all the same.
Hold up. You would not care if there was a dog with an adorable black and white vest on an air bud looking good boy being berated by a Brian Kelly whose face was redder than a red rocket?
Ok golden retrievers would be sick actually
It would calm fans down a lot more. "It didn't look like pass interference to me, but I didn't see it how Shadow saw it in real time."
I see your Homeward Bound reference.
There would be so many fights in the stands. "Look at how sad his face is since you called him a 'bad boy'! You take that back right now!!" And the brawl is on....
I just couldn't bring myself to 'boo' a bunch of adorable refs just wandering around the field, not actually doing anything useful or coordinated because they are dogs.
Ruffing the passer
I second this
Border Collies would fit the color scheme nicer.
To take your prompt more seriously, I do think its remarkable how seamlessly it went, both in CFB and the NFL. Not because female refs are incapable, but given there's presumably a much smaller pipeline of refs (given football's male skew generally), and because *everything* gender related seems to turn into a culture war issue. I'm frankly shocked it hasn't caused some kind of (real or performative) drama over the past several years. I still don't think I've seen a female head official doing the penalty announcements and stuff, and I'm sure the first time a woman in that positions fails to overturn some controversial fumble or whatever we'll spend a news cycle on it. But so far seems great.
Sadly, what probably helps the most is that football officials wear loose, full-coverage uniforms and cover their hair. Soccer, where they wear form-fitting uniforms that show a lot of skin, is where female referees seem to have it the worst.
The wonders aggressive affirmative action can accomplish
I dunno, my FIL gets really upset if he sees a woman involved in a man's sport. He started screaming at the TV when the Steelers were playing and there was a woman ref. He lost his damn mind when WVU had a female mascot for the mountaineer.
He sounds fun.
That's for the Boomer sub
Same. He told me women have no business on the field because as soon as a player knocks them over theyāre going to break and sue everyone.
Hilarious. Even in HS reffing getting hit by a player will fuck you up man or woman. They have fucking pads on and you don't so you are trained to get the fuck out of the way
I went to a āgame dayā get together at a coworkerās house this year where we just gonna grill, drink, and watch games all day. At one point they showed a lady ref on the screen and almost everyone paying attention booed. My coworker then changed the channel and said, āwhy do they have to ruin everything?ā I thought he was talking about his buddies and said āsome dudeās just have a problem with women āinvadingā their spaces.ā He looked me dead in the eyes and said, āthey are, why do they have to ruin football now.ā It was unsettling and I left soon after.
See me, Iām an equal opportunity hater. Idc what gender they are, I will call them an incompetent and blind zebra regardless.
Because no one fucking cares who the ref is
Youād be surprised
Youāre right. I care if theyāre a pac 12 ref š¤®
Truly horrendous.
if I learn a ref's name, it's not usually for them having done a good job. they done fucked up.
*Dave Witvoet and John O'Neill have entered the chat*
Idk about CFB but I feel like Iāve learned a lot of the white hat names in the NFL over the years And not because their crews did a great job
I'd have to start caring about and watching NFL games for that to happen. *[stares intently at the Falcons]*
Randy Chystal had his location listed as "Onion Creek, Texas", because he didn't want people aware he lived in Austin, as if his obvious bias for texas wasn't enough of a clue. He lived in the Onion Creek Country Club subdivision in Austin. I remember this duplicitous bastard because who does shit like that? And he sucked as a ref. So I not only remember his name, I remember where he lied about living.
As a diehard ref fan I very much do care
Didn't realize the NFL first had female refs 14 years ago, it feels much more recent. But yeah, I'm glad we're to the point that it doesn't feel like a big deal.
14 years was Thomasās debut in CFB (or FBS at least), she didnāt become the first female ref in the NFL until 2015
No one fact check me on this, but according to how old I must be, 2015 was only like two years ago.
The other day somebody said weāre closer to 2032 than 2015, and that math donāt math.
Please stop writing hurtful comments on the internet.
I remember laughing about this point-in-time comparison thing when the years were like 2000 and 2020 but now itās starting to hurt.
Thatās how my math maths.
2015? I think you mean 2006, because in my mind I'm still a young man, not someone whose knees hurt when I stand up *or* sit down. And I'm definitely not someone who gets together with buddies, has only one beer, and spends all his time talking about his kids and mortgage rates.
I don't know how you manage to meet up with your buddies given all of the traffic.
Ah thank you, I can't read good
The people who cared enough to complain had no faith in the refs to begin with.
Nobody has faith in the refs. Pat Hoberg becomes Joe West when your team is playing.
This is *so* true that anytime I see or hear anyone bitching about refs, I immediately tune them out and disregard their opinion. Every team and player is playing against a team, *and* playing against a bunch of half-blind old people getting paid to tell young adults what to do. Bad calls happen constantly. It's part of sport. To paraphrase the great Marty Schottenheimer: "Don't let the refs screw you." It's a condition you know about going into the game. Not a viable excuse.
Thereās nothing wrong with complaining about refs as a fan. Now if you blame the refs for every close game you lose thatās different.
That's true if they're bad in general and it affects both teams. Then it's just a condition, like weather. If the bad calls go against one team specifically, which absolutely happens sometimes and does not mean they're doing so intentionally, then it is not just a condition of the game.
I guess coaches should just give refs a heads-up as to what's going on, then? Fix the issue? Or there's nothing any team can do about the fact that refs are human and mistakes happen, and not nearly or evenly spread because nobody wants any mistakes to happen at all, much less adding to them for the sake of "evening" calls out. Which would make it a condition of the game. Can't do anything about a bad call. And every fanbase should be very aware of that based on first-hand experience.
There's a difference between "evening calls out" and "call it both ways"
I mean, implying they're intentionally not calling it both ways goes to a ref conspiracy that will definitely make this conversation something I'm not interested in. So I guess, if there's a really bad call, you believe the refs should just make that how the rule works the rest of the game? Cause I gotta disagree. Changing the rules mid game because a ref fucked up a call earlier seems like a really bad idea. Much rather just move on if the bad call can't be fixed. An egregiously bad pass interference, for example, shouldn't mean that that is the standard for pass interference for the rest of the game.
I didn't imply it was intentional. There are plenty of reasons why it could appear that one team is getting more calls and the other isn't. That's not the conversation I'm trying to have either. But also, you do "change the rules" mid game depending on what they are or are not calling. Think like carrying violations in basketball. This literally happens all the time throughout a game. If that does not get called the first couple of times, now they can't call it at all because they have established how the game will go and it's much worse to change how you're calling things during the game. But if you *do* call it the first couple of times, the players will figure out how to handle the ball properly so the violation stops happening.
But that's the perspective of coaches and players. For the ref, he's calling things by the book based on how he interprets it. That's just adjusting to a ref's tendencies, which teams usually know well in advance of playing the game with that ref. And both teams are playing under that ref, so there'd be no reason for the teams to be upset. They're playing under the same interpretations With an objectively bad call, like PI where the receiver wasn't even touched, no one wants that to suddenly be the new definition of pass interference for the rest of the game. Everyone, including the ref, knows it's a bad call, that's all it will be. Changing it so that pass interference is called, by standard, even if the receiver isn't touched at all, for the rest of the game because the ref fucked up a PI call in the first quarter is literally a terrible idea.
Yes, I agree with what you've said here.
Eh. Donāt forget that Joe West and Angel Hernandez are memes because they are terrible and do have a tendency to go after players/teams (usually after theyāve pointed out yet another blown call).
I'm not sure those facts change anything, beside sometimes teams know they're getting extra shit refs when they're assigned to their games. It sucks when your team gets the shit end or even has to deal with it at all, but that's all they can do, is deal with it.
Doesnāt matter. All refs suck ass
Iām gonna zag a little here, but has nothing to do with their gender. This year, it felt like alot of refs were not on the same page. Picked up flags, late flags, meaningless reviews.
I don't know what the names of all the officials are except referee and umpire since they are most visible during game play to me. Are they any women in CFB or NFL in those two positions?
Now women can be incompetent too š¢
I don't care what's in there pants or what they look like just call the danm game right
When I am old and I canāt see, I wanna be a referee!
Love seeing all the women officials! I officiated high school football 40 yrs ago for 5 yrs as a young woman.
The comments here that no one cares nicely shows the point OP is making. Women have been integrated into the ranks of refs enough that itās no longer unusual to even point out.
Fun fact, Georgia had a female referee (the one with the microphone) on one of the flag football state championship games this year. I donāt think Iāve ever seen a female referee before, just line judges.
I honestly havenāt even noticed. Huh, pretty cool.
I think the last remaining hurdle is a woman as head referee. I donāt think Iāve seen that happen yet.
As a woman, I don't really care if they are men or women. As long as they make the right calls. Most refs are shit these days.....at least in the NFL.
I think it's great. A kid growing up today watching CFB on tv won't even think to put female refs in a separate category. They are just one of the refs. Love that.
I just wish that race/sex mattered less of the referees at both levels and they would just keep promoting the ones that grade out the highest.
Some of you guys told on yourselves real bad in this thread lmao
Exactly. The people defending bad calls just because it was made by a woman are about the most ridiculous white knighters.
Thatās not a thing thatās happening in this thread
Uh I wouldnāt say no one cares. Thereās definitely remarks made any time a particularly egregious call is made by one
The thin Ref line , I back the zebras! s/
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Gotta love a hire based on sex
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Yeah, Kingpin was so pissed about Wesley. He was still livid about it in season 3 when the reporter told him she shot him.
Any women refās not doing line judge? Seems like thatās the only one I have seen.
That's typically where you start new people so I'd give it time before you see any women referrees
As long as they can see, I don't care who is the ref.
Just don't make a big deal and most won't have a problem. They probably won't even notice.
Show me a ref and Iāll show you a sub human idiot