Let’s (not) see it again: Review changing sports, officiating
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Case closed.
Or is it?
Now no one has ever accused me of being a defender of officials in any sport. But this isn’t about officiating.
It’s about replay.
It’s about how replay has changed the games people play. It’s about how replay has changed it for the worse. It’s about how replay has made it nearly impossible for officials to do their job and the answer is not found in more technology, such as baseball is seeking with robo-umpires, but in less.
We live life in real time. There are no replay reviews in life.
We must get back to living it in sports.
The inclusion of instant replay reviews into the officiating process was the worst change to sports between the addition of the designated hitter in basketball and NIL and the transfer portal in college sports.
See, with replay, the focus shifts from the players to the officials or umpires. It isn’t how you play the game, it’s how you call the game and the rule has always been in officiating that you call ’em as you see ’em.
Believe me, that worked for years. Did they get calls wrong? Sure they did.
But life went on.
What replay has done is put officials in the position where they can never be right because people see what they want to see.
You saw what happened in the Super Bowl, but you don’t really need a Super Bowl to make the point.
In fact, you can take maybe the worst basketball game of the year, the one West Virginia played Saturday at Texas, a game decided by 34 points, a game where the Mountaineers seemed to be playing in slow-mo while Texas was on fast forward.
Talk about a play that defied, not defined, replay.
Emmitt Matthews Jr. drives to the basketball, there’s contact as he goes in for a shot that also goes in.
Whistles shriek out foul.
One official, Rick Crawford, rules charge. One official, Washington native Ray Natili, rules block.
Same play, two calls exactly opposite of each other.
They went to replay. Time passed and passed and passed, then they reached a decision.
Both officials were right, they said, which sounds like a rather ridiculous decision. Matthews was fouled. Matthews also was charged with a foul. The basket counted but there was no free throw.
The officials were both right and wrong, depending upon how you looked at it.
Same in the Super Bowl. The defender admits he held.
The Eagles fans felt it, at best, didn’t affect the play and at worst it never happened, even though the evidence was right there before their eyes.
And besides, they say, you couldn’t call something so ticky-tack as that at such a crucial stage in the game.
But you can call it. You should call it. You should call it in the first minute of the game or the last … if you see it.
Officials with replay have come to be lazy, knowing that the plays will be replayed and come out right anyway.
But will they? Teams go fast to avoid replays of decisions that might go against them.
The thing is, a foul can be called on nearly every single play in basketball and football.
In WVU’s basketball game against Iowa State there were 49 of them called. And, it seemed, about half that many again that were overlooked or missed.
How many were replayed? After one, when Joe Toussaint was called for committing a foul, he wound up being the man being fouled.
Players have become so big, so fast that officiating is an impossible chore.
The idea behind replay was acceptable and that was to avoid obvious mistakes. An umpire taking a perfect game away by missing a call at first base, a pass that clearly hit the ground being called complete in the end zone.
It wasn’t to replay every play, to call every minor infraction, to see a grab of the jersey by the defense that can barely be seen by anyone in the stands or on the field, including the officials.
Television replay is made to show the players’ greatness, to highlight highlights, to show Bill Buckner errors and Bob Moose wild pitches … but isn’t there to tell if a pitch is on or off the corner of the plate by a half inch or if it’s a block or a charge or a hold or not.
That’s for the officials and you live with their call, right or wrong.
There’s a difference between replays being used as part of the telecast of a game and as part of the officiating of the game.
That’s how we all live our lives.