With a number of comments in other threads about some controversial calls and non-calls in the Minnesota game, it's time to bring up the subject of Conference officials. It amazes me why no one ever raises this question.

With multi-millions of dollars on the line as to winning records versus playoffs and bowl games for each conference, it sure seems to me a conflict of interest to have the game officials belonging to the various conferences. It would seem logical to me that all officials should not have any conference affiliation at all and instead come under a neutral association of officials run by the NCAA.

I presume that when they say the officials are from the ACC, for example, that the officials are hired by the ACC, paid by the ACC, graded by the ACC, then evaluated for employment the following year by the ACC. To me that is a clear conflict of interest.

So when a team has its own conference officials working a non-league game, and the outcome of the game could very well at the end of the season determine whether the conference gets that team into a higher-paying bowl game, or even into a bowl game at all, well we sure are talking potential money on the line here, and lots of it.

Overall yesterday I thought the refs called the game fairly. That's one reason why it was so competitive. But when the game was on the line, the refs made sure the B10 team got the break. Even Jerry Kill commented that he had never seen that happen in a game and that it was a "big, big, big play" (maybe another "big" in there). It shouldn't surprise us because it's happened since Biblical times. But it's hardly ever that obvious.

DXer, this is a great point. Why aren't officials just "NCAA officials"?


(Or, are they, and I just don't know it?)

Probably because they don't want them to be considered employees.