Listen up Big Ten referees

[NUance]

Listen up Big Ten referees.

Written by Brandon Cavanaugh, who is part of the Athlon Contributor Network.

To Whom It May Concern,

In the second quarter of Nebraska’s 33-28 loss to BYU, a Tommy Armstrong pass sailed over Husker tight end David Sutton’s head. There was no way he was going to catch it. In fact, no one in the Cougars’ wide receiver corps could have either, and this group seemingly shares genetics with Big Bird.

This is the point where the necessity of these words should cease. Instead, BYU defensive back Jordan Preator nailed a hit so low, he had time to roll Sutton’s legs over his entire back padding before exiting the field of play.

<snip>

However, I refuse to overlook the hypocrisy of shoving rules down our collective throats in the name of “player safety” only to have a player’s well-being be so negligently overlooked.

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Gotta say, I agree with this guy. That was a terrible cheap shot by BYU's Preator. And an equally terrible no-call by the B1G refs.

 

[Savage Husker]

I liked this paragraph:

"At this point, you have two options: Publicly admit you messed up or dont preach about how important player safety is to me, fans, coaches, analysts, etc."

That wasn't a "football" play. The kid wasn't playing the ball, he wasn't even looking for the ball. He saw a target, he lowered his head, and he went in recklessly.

 

[dergibog]

I was also disappointed that the Cougar receiver, Nick Kurtz (5), was not flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after his catch in the first quarter. I believe the WH had a photo of the exchange in the paper on Sunday. Seemed the officials were not in mid-season form for this game either.

 

[Blackshirt39]

That zebra crew was garbage. They couldn't even tell the teams apart. If anyone one of us did our jobs that poorly, we'd be done. No reason they should be any different.

 

[California Husker]

Somebody needs to tell these refs that Bo is no longer the Nebraska coach. There is a nice guy coaching the team now. There will no longer be anyone on the sideline cussing and spitting at them. There is no longer any reason to hate Nebraska. It is alright to actually call a hold. It's okay to call back a TD when the other team blatantly commits hands to the face (rather than reverse the call). It's alright to eject a player that seems to keep going for a players legs when he finally, obviously, blatantly attempts to do harm to one of the Huskers. In other words, it's okay to be fair to the Huskers. C'mon B1G refs...show the Huskers some love.

 

[jsneb83]

The funny thing was that ESPN still panned the camera to Riley after a penalty, but there was no reaction.

 

[Enhance]

The NCAA's and NFL's abundant exclamations of caring about player safety have always been a bit misleading. You could probably argue the NCAA has been a bit more forward thinking than the NFL when it comes to concussion, for example. But, unless I'm mistaken, even the NCAA didn't really start to pitch in monetarily until the last couple of years.

Instead, you have university's like UNL, who have designed and built multi-million dollar research facilities to study all things brain. A significant portion of the CB3 focuses on concussion studies. I don't even think the NCAA is giving money to UNL for their research - instead, the NCAA partnered with the Department of Defense to study concussion patients over years, even decades.

Not their efforts are in vain, of course. But, an AP article I found says that it could take years for the NCAA/DoD study to produce any functioning, hard data. Whereas UNL is working to make it so as soon as a player suffers a head injury on field, they could come to the sideline and immediately be strapped into a brain analysis machine using a mesh-cap.

Sorry for the tangent - we're talking about a hit to the knees here that was uncalled for. I just think there's a lot more the NCAA could do if they really cared about player safety as they proclaim they do.

 

[Enhance]

The funny thing was that ESPN still panned the camera to Riley after a penalty, but there was no reaction.

Funny in the sense that Pelini probably would've been irate and yelling at the refs? They're going to be sorely disappointed if they're hoping for something like that out of Riley.

I did see Riley get fired up a couple times on the sideline - did not expect that and it was brilliant.

 

[California Husker]

The funny thing was that ESPN still panned the camera to Riley after a penalty, but there was no reaction.

Funny in the sense that Pelini probably would've been irate and yelling at the refs? They're going to be sorely disappointed if they're hoping for something like that out of Riley.

I did see Riley get fired up a couple times on the sideline - did not expect that and it was brilliant.

Yes, you are both correct, but as I said above...not enough to make the refs continue the ridiculous crap like ignoring what should have been a PF on Preator and the TD that should have been called back when 78 was giving Maurice the business.