I thought SWAC officials were bad, but to witness what took place in Saturday night's game between Florida and Tennessee was unbelievable. The officiating was not really that bad, even though I saw a couple of questionable calls (In all honesty I was between Jax ST and T ST and a few other games that were on that evening) but to wait until the end of the game to make a pivotal call is not uncommon to happen in SEC football. Instant replays clearly showed that the referee witnessed the whole skirmish from start to finish. It was very evident that Tenn.'s Jonathan Wade threw the first blow at Dallas Baker and Baker retaliated. When the flag was thrown, I thought for sure it was going to be offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. But to see it go one way just dictated to me that the outcome was influenced by those 100,000+ Rocky-Top fans screaming at Neyland Stadium.
15 yards, positive or negative can make a big difference in a game ever so close. If it had been the right call, then the ball would have stayed on Florida's 38 yard line instead of being moved back to the 23. Another blunder on the part of the officials was game clock management. On that initial play the tailback for Florida ran the ball for no gain and he was in bounds. Mistake number one, the game clock was stopped. Had he gone out of bounds or if there was an incomplete pass then the clock should be stopped. In the previous case, neither one happened and the clock should have continued to run up until the penalty was called by the referee...Mistake number two! They messed up again with the clock when it should have started once the ball was placed on the ground. Bobby Gaston, SEC supervisor of the officials said that the crew will be dealt with and more than likely be punished. As far as the Auburn-LSU game, that's a very crazy new rule and that was not a fluke call like the UT-UF game. It's too bad that when you see the mistakes that are made by officials in the SWAC, that it's not dealt with in a professional and charismatic matter like the other conferences.
Both of my teams lost on the last dayum play in Tenn.
