Bloomberg article about ref bias

first they hire Tressel, who cheated in recruiting every year.  Total lack of control by ohio administrators and eventually forced a slap on the wrist by some NCAA body and Tressel retired instead of ohio being sanctioned (one year of no bowl for 8 years of cheating isn't punishment.  Now it appears that have control over who officates some games.  PSU in 2014 and this year's Michigan games are obviously biased examples.  We may never know who or how - but if the B1G has a rule about officials not working games where they may have a "natural bias" - they certainly broke that rule by letting 4 anti-Michigan officials work this year's game.  (yeah the 4th was even from Michigan that shown Harbaugh hate on facebook).

Just fuck, fuck, fuck ... we were clearly the better team last Saturday.  

Go Blue!

For fuck sakes.  Let it go.

You people are acting like they gave OSU 5 downs or something.  Newsfash: refs miss calls in every game.

OSU got screwed in their PSU game, and they didn't get screwed in this game.  That's just how things even out.

Whining about it changes nothing and makes us look like PSU.

I can guarantee you if you look at the entire game film there were penalities that should have been called on us too.

- Place all B1G referees on Zug Island

- Build a wall around Zug Island.

- Make Delany pay for said wall.

- Have ceremony on Zug Island upon completion of said wall with presentation of check to pay for it. Seal off opening to wall before Delany exits.

- ?????

- Profit.

Another thing it doesn't address is the refs fear of getting killed by Truck Driver OSU fans.  Not a big concern if you are reffing a Harvard game.

The article talks about some issues that I always felt existed. I pretty much said the same thing four days ago. I still believe the majority of college referees try to do their job in an ethical manner, but some funny stuff does seem to be happening every now and then.    

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/we-are-not-alone#comment-4234152

Jim Harbaugh has officially won this argument.

When BloombergBusinessWeek starts running articles about referee bias, you know he has gotten his message across.

100% guarantee that this article and the others like it that we have been seeing all week would have never existed without Harbaugh's tirade.

Dumb as a fox.

are alot of reviewed calls in the booth that should be overturned, but die in the hands of some old retired fuck.

Fuck that.  If they can get away with it, why can't we do it next year when we really need it??

Other studies have shown that referee bias is a significant (some say only but I think they're overstating their case) factor in home-field advantage. Studies examining the psychology of it relate it to fan behavior, and there's been some correlation established between referee bias and attendance (little to no home advantage in a nearly empty arena/stadium).

Maybe flagship programs are advantaged because they draw better? And often have more rabid fanbases?

Maybe Miami would be a good place to look. They're down now but historically I can't think of a program with a bigger gap between performance and home attendance.

As an official, your professional behavior is always subject to scrutiny. I don't care what sport an official works, that is just the way it is.

Offiicials understand they are subject to questions about bias based on their appearance, behavior and pre-and postgame conduct on and off the field and court. The way you act around teams, and individual players and coaches, is always watched and judged. If you are overly-friendly in competitive situations, that behavior will be noticed and called out. And all officials know this.

So they are instructed not to give even a hint of this type of bias.This would include allowing themselves to be interviewed or the subject of feature newspaper stories about their rooting interests expecially in a sport they work.  That  along with residency doesn't always connote bias, because officials are in the business of game management, which doesn't always mean that their imperative is to make every call they see in every game they work. What their job is really about is  to manage a game so both teams feel afterward that the game was properly and fairly officiated, even if they didn't get every call correct.

The aim is to be consistent and fair based on the rules enforcement standard set that day by the play of whatver competition or level of play the game involves. And generally speaking higher-level play gets greater officiating respect in competitive situations and usually means fewer calls. Like teams, every crew enters a contest with a specific gameplan. Before tha game, they go over their duties, responsibilities and coverages. They may review plays in other games that caused constroversy and issues, and they may even talk about past issues with certain teams and coaches.

And I would agree with the article's premise that calls tend to benefit the home team or flagship conference teams, if only because power conference leaders get greater publicity and their athletes higher profiles, so they get more respect and a longer leash from officiating crews.

The crew that worked Saturday's game has done any number of Michigan games over the years. And I don't recall major controversy arising from tjhe previous games they worked. I am not certain how many Michigan-Ohio State games they have previously worked. But these guys have worked Michigan games before. And I have no idea where they rank as a crew in Bill Corollo's rankings, how they were assigned this game, and whether Michigan's problems witth other crews led to this veteran group getting the nod over others.

However, there were major issues with the calling standard Saturday with rspect to pass intereference and unsportsmanlike conduct. No standard was set for holding, so it was just not called. And apparently holiding is not a point of emphasis in the Big Ten, because this call has just not been made reguarlly, nor is it clear what the standard for it is. But certain calls were made in traffic and then just otherwise ignored, and the pattern of calls all seemed to favor the home team.

Michigan hasn't beaten Ohio State in Columbus since 2000. It hasn't beaten the Buckeyes at home since 2011. OSU is the power driving this conference regardless of Michigan history and tradition. Our coach is a lightening rod, and perhaps a bigger public figure than even Bo was, if that's possible. And he is loved and hated by many including those within college football and this conference. And he also regularly shows up officiating crews when he disagrees with calls during a game, regardless of whether it leads to being flagged or not. This behavior never sits well with officials. And I can tell you that when crews are given a chance to punish ooor behavior by a coach or player, they will act on that opportunity. That is what happened Saturday.

All the circumstances allowed for Michigan to be punished by the crew that worked that game because of the environment. They set a standard for pernalites and then failed to consistently enforce it. That is a basic violation of game management. They held one coach's conduct to a higher standard than another, another violation of game management. And they ignored certain calls that challenge their integrity in promoting the ideal of sportsmanship and equity in enforcement. The pattern of no-calls simply offers room for no other conclusion. Whether Michigan lost because of that is irrelevant. Michigan had their chances to win, and failed to make enough plays to do so.

But the greater question for me as a Michigan fan is, if this veteran crew took it upon ifself to judge one team and coach's actions a certain way in deference to another, what does that say about the conference's inrerest in this game? They have a lot of questions to answer about the basic tenents of competitive fairness which goes to the heart of league integrity from the question of perceieved bias to actual bias in calling decisions, We need a direct response from the league on this.

> Rogers Redding, national coordinator for NCAA football officiating, says referees are human but unfailingly scrupulous. “I can unequivocally say that I have never seen any sign of bias on the part of officials at any level,” says Redding, who officiated NCAA football for 18 years.

He has "never seen any sign of bias" in 18 years. That is impossible.

If you can't even acknowledge a problem sometimes occurs, how would it ever get fixed?

Refs should be forced to wear body cams or mics like police officers so that it can be reviewed after games.

One thing that the article glosses over is that the programs most likely to generate revenue are the most successful programs. The most successful programs are generally led by good coaches. A well-coached team will likely commit fewer penalties.

This is briefly touched upon at this point:

“Some teams are just better” at avoiding penalties, he says

“What’s the expectation of the number of fouls that would be called in the absence of bias? We don’t know.”

protecting his professional domain. Look, Michigan got jobbed on Saturday. I didn't think this was possible. But clearly some coaches and teams are subject to the vagaries of assigning nightmares. And this one is a case in point. The way this game was officiated tells me that Harbaugh has created a lot of enemies in Chicago. The fact that the league would allow this travesty of a game to be called in its name says a lot about the state of football officiating in the Big Ten. There was a pattern of no-calls in this game which just cannot be justified. And I would love to hear an explanation about them from the league. Of course, that will never happen. Because that's just the way the system works.

Protected flagships in the Big Ten did especially well with officials, the research shows. Ohio State, the conference’s most competitive flagship team in the years Brymer studied, was 14 percent less likely to be dinged for a discretionary foul than, say, Purdue, a non-flagship team with little chance of contending for a national title. The Buckeyes fared even better with refs in 2014, when it made the first-ever formal playoff and won the national championship on Jan. 12, 2015.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO