NCAA Needs to Blow the Whistle on Conference Affiliation

College football is supposed to be pure. In an age where the money-driven NFL makes as many headlines with contract negotiations and rookie holdouts as they do with game recaps, college football is supposed to be different. It should be about competition, school rivalries and pageantry, not the checkbook. Yet, with the amount of money available for teams and conferences that make BCS bowl games, one has to wonder just how pure the sport remains.

This college football season in particular, has been marred by poor officiating which has influenced the outcome of several high profile games. With the advent of the college football replay system, and the increase in number of high-definition cameras at these games, referees should be getting more of these close calls correct, but are they? Perhaps the problem lies in that referees are paid by conferences, rather than the NCAA.

Last season, the BCS awarded BCS conferences $18 million dollars for sending a team to a BCS bowl game. Although BCS conference champions automatically earn a BCS berth, conferences stand to earn a bonus - approximately $4 million in 2008 - if a conference sends a second team to a BCS bowl game by way of an at-large bid. Thus, financially speaking, conferences benefit from keeping as many teams in the BCS bowl discussion as possible.

For fans, upsets are some of the most exciting games in sports, but for a conference looking to cash in on BCS money, they can be a nightmare. Take for instance the Georgia-LSU or Florida-Arkansas games earlier this season. In both instances, phantom personal foul penalties were called at critical moments, benefitting the perceived better teams and reducing the likelihood of an upset. After video evidence proved that these calls were unjustified, the officiating crew, which happened to be assigned to both games, was suspended by the SEC. But, what good does a suspension really do? Are Arkansas or Georgia feeling better knowing that the officials were wrong? No. The outcomes of the games remain the same.

The SEC isn't the only conference that has allowed officials to influence games this season; just look at the Big Ten. The Iowa-Indiana game on Halloween was perhaps the most blatant attempt to change the outcome of a football game that I have ever seen. Coming into the game at #4 in the country, Iowa represented the Big Ten's best chance at a National Championship and BCS bowl bid in an otherwise mediocre conference. After underdog Indiana jumped out to a 21-7 lead, the officials stepped in to alter the outcome of the game.

Replay officials took two apparent touchdowns away from Indiana, including overturning one touchdown called on the field, when video evidence clearly confirmed the call. Additionally, an Indiana scoring drive was cut short when a fourth down run was marked short of the first down, when replay clearly showed that the ball should have been placed past the first down marker. It should be noted that Indiana finally won a replay decision, but it was on a meaningless first-down incomplete pass, not nearly as critical to the final score. Games like this have been a regular occurrence in the Big Ten this season (Michigan-Notre Dame, Michigan-Indiana, Iowa-Michigan State), yet every week it continues.

Regardless of whether one agrees with the disputed calls above or not, the question still remains why are officials affiliated with and paid by the same conferences that stand to profit by outcomes of games? Even if officials were to never miss a call, would this scenario not be ripe for accusations of corruption? While some might point to the unfairness of the BCS as the cause for the conference biasness, the alternative of a playoff system would still likely benefit conferences that can send multiple teams to the tournament, potentially even more so than the current system. The only real solution to the problem is for the NCAA to provide officials for all college football games.

Eliminating conference affiliated officiating in college football will not prevent officials from making head-scratching calls, but if nothing else, it will erase the suspicion that money is at the root of the calls. The NCAA is on the verge of losing college football to the collective wallets of the conferences. It is time for the NCAA to take a stand, for the integrity of the sport, and change the landscape of the way games are officiated. It needs to take the whistles out of the mouths of the conferences, and let the outcome of games be decided on the field, by the players.