Doin' The Hater Chop

How much do I loathe everyone's number-one college football team? How much do I throw up in my mouth every time I hear some hackneyed reporter belch out one of their pre-scripted "you can't help but cheer for these guys" cliches about America's supposed darlings, the Florida Gators?

Let's put it this way. After today I will channel any and all available resources, human or otherwise, to make sure Florida doesn't reach the BCS championship game, much less win it. I'll drink the blood, sacrifice the appropriate fowl, what have you. Whatever it takes.

The Anointed Ones were tied with Arkansas 13-13 midway through the fourth quarter on Saturday when Razorback quarterback Ryan Mallet (remember that name, Michigan fans?) tossed a perfect pass to Greg Childs. The sophomore wideout caught it in stride, cut across field and scored on an electrifying 77-yard touchdown pitch-catch-and-run. Childs was hit as he crossed goal line, jarring the ball loose and knocking him to the ground. However he managed to jump back up, crawl across the end zone to fall on the ball. So even if he didn't score on the reception, he scored recovering his own fumble.

Yet the veteran CBS announcing team of Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson must have spent the previous commercial break scoring hallucinogens on a Gainsville street corner.

They gasped when the officials called for a review of play, each telling the nation how important a call this may turn out to be. Oh really? Is it really important to determine whether Childs gets credited with a TD catch or a fumble recovery for a TD? Frankly I don't know why the play was even reviewed, since it would have led to the same result in either scenario.

But tell that to Verne and Gary. The pair were either conjoined in some form of dual brain lock or busy doing a quiet Gator chop gesture in the press booth. Still immersed in self-created contraversy, Verne--a man with nearly a half century of sports broadcasting experience under his belt - suggested that the play may be ruled an incompletion. An incompletion! Childs caught the ball at the midfield, crossed the width of The Swamp to the other sideline, fought off a tackler at the 15, picked up a key block at the 10 and lost the ball upon reaching the goal line. That was one hell of a bobble, eh Verne?

Not to be outdone, Gary--who starred at Purdue before moving into the booth for ABC back in the 1980s--threw out this "possibility": should the refs determine that Childs fumbled before crossing the goal line, they may just rule the ball dead at the point of the fumble.

HUH?????? How can that possibly be? When is a play ever dead at the point a ball is fumbled? The closest I can come to the mid-fumble-whistle theory is a situation where a player either loses the ball and it travels backwards and out of bounds (whereupon the point he fumbles is also his forward progress)... or intentionally fumbles it forward, typically in an act of last-minute desperation. Neither applied to what Danielson runaway train of thought. The only situation here was one of two wishfully thinking announcers grabbing at straws. No matter how much you wish it to be, sometimes it just can't be.

As it turned out, the officiating crew led by Marc Curles ultimately confirmed the ruling on the field, giving Arkansas the touchdown. Had they reversed it, it would have given Arkansas a touchdown. Oooh such suspense.

The officials weren't finished. On the Gators' ensuing drive they flagged the Razorbacks for two phantom 15-yard penalties. The first was for pass interference on a defensive back who did nothing but play his position. The second, an undefined personal foul on defensive tackle Malcolm Sheppard. All he did was put a hit on charging Florida lineman Marcus Gilbert.

How bad was THAT call? Even Danielson couldn't help but rip the refs for it. It wasn't after the whistle had blown. It wasn't at the head or knees. It was a chest-on-chest block against an on-rushing Gilbert. Gilbert was the one who was knocked to the ground, however. And in Gainsville, apparently, Gators aren't supposed to hit the ground. So Arkansas was given a personal foul for a really good hit.



The two gifts gave Florida 26 yards of its drive to the tying touchdown. Then in the final minutes NCAA-dream-date quarterback Tim Tebow (the dude with scripture on his cheeks) drove the Gators downfield again, as everyone expected him to do, for the winning field goal. The misty-eyed mediots have already started calling it Tebow's "Heisman Moment"--even though the kid hasn't thrown for 800 yards all season. Happy Sweetest Day, Timmy! Ur the gr8st, Urban! Love... the SEC, the BCS, the NCAA... heck, everybody!

I'll just say it: both calls were bullshit. In fact they weren't merely bullshit. They weren't simply two blown calls. These refs didn't miss anything. That would be excusable. They saw things happen that didn't happen. Which can't help but leave you with a how-come-I-had-a-straight-flush-and-still-got-beat feeling. It's as if there was a higher power involved. Maybe the BCS gods were summoned. Gee, ya think?

So everyone wants the Gators to win it all again huh. Well fine, then I'll be the one who doesn't. I think Florida is a bully. A football program that couldn't wait to pound their mighty chests the minute they dropped Miami and Florida State off their schedule. (Imagine Michigan ending their rivalries with Ohio State and Notre Dame because these opponents are deemed too "competitive".) A school so badass they haven't played a single regular-season football game outside of SEC territory in over a quarter century. A poseur of a team with a cry-baby a coach and an altar-boy do-no-wrong quarterback. Yes I'm admittedly biased, nonetheless I think they leap-frogged over #2 Michigan in 2006 by whining incessantly until enough voters dropped the Wolverines--whose season had already ended--to third in the BCS rankings. (The Wolverines have never lost to the Gators, beating them twice in Florida bowl games... and I'll never miss a chance to bring up this fact when it's relevant.)

They're a team that gets phantom calls on the field and cheerleader-worthy support in the booth because there's just too much at stake in December and January. Florida is the SEC flavor of the month so they have to be there till the end. And no upstart, upset-minded Arkansas team can change That Which Must Be.

Then fine, I say. Give Tebow the Heisman right now. Give Florida a free pass to the BCS title game, right now. But don't force this on us under the guise of legitimacy. Don't force us to listen to network apologists make up rules. Don't force us to watch as referees make up penalties. Have a little respect for the intelligent, objective football viewers out there--the ones who aren't wearing alligator heads.

There must be a few of us out there, right?

FOLLOW-UP: Since my blog post the SEC has officially suspended Marc Curles and his entire officiating crew. The league said there was no video evidence to support the personal foul on Arkansas defensive lineman Malcolm Sheppard in the fourth quarter as the Gators were rallying to overcome a 20-13 deficit. Florida scored on the drive and eventually beat the Razorbacks, 23-20.

As it turns out, last weekend's Arkansas-Florida debacle is the crew's second controversial call of the year.
The same group worked the LSU-Georgia game earlier this month, in which the conference ruled an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty late in the contest should not have been called. This is the first time in SEC history that the league's front office has publicly suspended a football crew.

"A series of calls that have occurred during the last several weeks have not been to the standard that we expect from our officiating crews," SEC commissioner Mike Slive said Wednesday. "I believe our officiating program is the best in the country. However, there are times when these actions must be taken."

The SEC says Curles' crew will be removed from its next scheduled assignment on October 31 and will not be assigned to officiate as a crew until November 14. The league said the crew's bowl assignments could also be impacted. Link to the complete story: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4583642