Roman calls B___sh!t

I still think the ball broke the plane of the end zone on the initial touch.  The bobble just sealed it as obvious as far as I am concerned.

 I am tired of replay officials marking the ball back at the knee and not where the ball was when the knee was down.

that didn’t cost us the game though. The boneheaded play calling inside the 10 did.

1st and goal at the 1 inch line …. How do you not run a QB sneak???? How???

We should have been up 14-0, 10-0 at a minimum, early in the 1st. Game plays out totally differently but alas, we shit the bed on both sides of the ball all night long 

The replay officials should have a hot mic and camera on them all game. Rather than having an anonymous cowardly referee in the booth, they should have their face shown in public with a name attached, like all other officials. I understand the arguments for keeping them anonymous because it’s a crazy world, but too much is at stake to have some cowardly anonymous dude steal touchdowns from kids in the biggest game of their life. If a replay official can’t stand that level of heat, then they can get out of the kitchen. 
 

The whole replay process is extremely flawed. To overturn a call on the field, they need indisputable evidence… not probably or possibly, but very clear evidence. They overturned a touchdowns without ANY evidence today. There should be a hot mic and multiple review officials, including an official advocate for each teams point of view. If there is no legitimate dispute from the respective advocate, the call can be overturned. 

when a catch is actually completed because at no point in any football league or level has a ball bouncing and still moving been considered completed yet.

Yeah seems like a double standard vs situations where the receiver is falling out of bounds.  E.g. if it were the back of the endzone instead of the front, my guess is they would have said he didn't have possession until he crossed the back line, no catch 

Maddening that such incompetent people were given that much power 

If that play had been on the sideline you can be damn sure the call would have been that he hasn't completed the catch before crossing the line. For the revuew to overturn that is behind belief.

There are so many things wrong with college football officiating, and these and other proposed solutions seem super obvious. It’ll likely never happen though, because there’s not enough incentive for the sport to change. Substantially improving officiating would cost a lot, but what would the return on investment be? As frustrating as it is for us to watch it continue, we’re still watching, we won’t stop watching, and the powers that be know that. Also, is there a significant untapped market who is waiting for the officiating to improve before they tune in regularly? Certainly not. 

I really think the only way out of this is for definitive proof of a point shaving scandal involving college football referees in a high profile game to surface. Such a scandal would force reform. These referees are paid absurdly little relative to the power they have over the outcome of games where millions of dollars are at stake; there’s definitely been some refs on the take somewhere along the way. But without the proof of that, this is what we’re left with indefinitely. 

That is all well and good but when people fuck up badly accountability is needed. UM made mistakes and I am sure they will own them, but the replay official also made a colossal one that defies logic and reason. It is quite frankly an ongoing problem that the NCAA has where the replay officials seemingly don't understand what their actual function is and what indisputable means. Unfortunately it is the second time in 2 years that UM had a td taken off the board in what ended up being a one score game.

Everyone processes frustration differently. Some people let it out all at once, others bottle it up. I doubt there was a single human being on the Michigan sideline that felt magnanimous towards the refs for putting their thumb on the scale. Yes Michigan could have played a cleaner game. TCU could have also played a cleaner game. If the roles were reversed it would be TCU players calling BS.

I don't get frustrated for more than a few seconds over a bad spotting of the ball. Or a catch that looked like it could have possibly been incomplete. But man that targeting call shouldn't have even been up for debate. I've seen people get convicted for murder on much more flimsy evidence. Even a half drunk pee-wee ref would have gotten that call right.

Hoping for a bailout on the last play, on a dumb targeting play by TCU thing is one thing.  Play better, don’t leave it up to the refs.  But sorry, when a touchdown is scored by Michigan…and it isn’t questionable…and then said touchdown is inexplicably overturned, and you go on to lose the game by 6…hard to get over that.

Own what?

The fact that we got screwed out of 7 pts?

2 announcers and the rules expert simultaneously said TD, and these assholes come back with an "undisputed" reversed call.

The butterfly effect is in play here... The overall shift in the game from that play cannot easily be calculated. Simply shifting points is the best we have to work with, and it says we should have won. The entire game plays out differently from that point on.

You can only own your own screw ups. When is the ref going to own up to his?

Lol, and this is why refs are never held accountable because that is what the narrative shifts to. And yes it is true, but this is what leads to officials not being held accountable for their end. They are constantly let off the hook because the narrative becomes 100% about a team's mistakes  instead of both things being true at the same time. UM could have overcome it with less mistakes,  but it does not mean the replay official should not receive massive scrutiny for fucking up collassally. 

Here's the thing:  yeah, we made plenty of mistakes ourselves.  As did TCU.  And referees have to make lots of split-second judgment calls.  It's a tough job.

But the replay official doesn't have that excuse.  He gets to calmly watch the play in slow-motion, as many times as he needs, since the NCAA has no time limit for reviews.  And his job is made even easier by the fact that the call on the field is favored, and that only clear, indisputable evidence can overturn it.  

Quite simply, there's no excuse for this guy to make a mistake.  And somehow, he did.

Right, one team can have an inexhaustible amount of their actual accomplishments - whether it be yards, points, plays, whatever - taken away from them while their opponent does not and still win!

That’s a terrible argument and terrible expectation. I mean, think about it. How is the team supposed to win when the things they actually do to result in a win inexplicably don’t count? Makes no sense.

"Play just a tick better and that was a Michigan win.  Full stop."

I used to think this was how "elevated" fans reacted to bad reffing.

Over the years I've come to realize this is bullsihit

Your response now gives me mroe of a "i'm in an abusive relationship and need to justify it" kinda vibe.

I honestly don't know why you're being upvoted so much for this terrible take.  Sure, play better...  But at what point does crap officiating begin to sway the outcome?  Michigan made a mistake by fumbling away the ball on the goal line.  But why are we running a play there?  Because the officials jacked up a review call and not a single person on the planet can explain why.  That play should have never been run - and the game is different.  Do we win?  Don't know...  But it's very different early on.

There comes a point when an officials mistake begin to offset a teams mistakes and start to change the outcome of the game.  They need to be held as accountable for that as the players are.  You cannot constantly let them off the hook by saying 'play better' - there is a point where it doesn't matter how well you play.  Michigan hit that point, again, last night.

Well the replay official also could have corrected that spot. But yeah the spot being two yards off is something that no one is really talking about but definitely a huge gaffe by the on field crew and then again on the replay guy who is supposed to be reviewing every play and could have corrected the spot. I mean also potentially makes there be no review period if Wilson is three yards in the endzone so had a pretty big impact as well.

You know what also doesn't change anything? Officials really not being held accountable, which the mindset of don't call shit out because it could be perceived as whining or whatever doesn't really help. The NCAA in particular really should have a discussion about their replay officials because there are far too many examples of these guys not understanding what indisputable means. On field officials I can cut some slack in real time but this shit from replay officials is inexcusable. I mean inexcusable is a bold word to use in most cases but I don't know what else you can call it.

Yep. Mullings is gonna hold himself accountable. JJ is going to hold himself accountable. The team and coaches will hold them accountable. Who is going to hold head referee Jason Autrey accountable?

Yep, players and coaches are scrutinized and have to answer hard questions publicly about their mistakes, etc but someone like this replay official won't have to answer what exactly he was looking at in in any public capacity. Now maybe there are discussions behind closed doors, but whatever they are clearly are not nearly enough because replay officials continuing to not understand what it takes to overturn a call is something we have seen happen far too much in general in college football.

I'm usually in the "don't blame the refs; play better" camp, but this makes a ton of sense. Very good question: why do kids have to sit in front of cameras and explain their decisions/mistakes immediately after a gut-wrenching loss, and adults are granted anonymity and immunity for blunders that can/did have enormous impact on the game? 

Great point, Blueprint. 

It is possible to be equally upset at both.  UM executed for a TD on the play, they should have been rewarded with a TD. They had to run another play and unfortunately fucked up that play in the worse way possible.  I also agree a qb sneak should be the default half a yard play for any team with the push now allowed. That is mistake they own up to right in the article. But it is also fair to point out they only had to run another play at all because of inexcusable replay official incompetence. And that also isn't right.