Weekly Affirmation: Misplaced Priorities

Based on recent events in the college football world, the Weekly Affirmation might as well hire a public relations firm and spend waking hours arguing for a prominent place in the BCS rankings, all while showing YouTube videos that offer inconclusive evidence about disputed touchdown catches. That, and Subjective Heft, in this week's column.

By Matthew Zemek
 


Follow Mr. Zemek and the Weekly Affirmation on Twitter: twitter.com/MattZemek_CFN

Part I. The Subjective Heft Show

Subjective Claim: If Bobby Bowden was reason No. 1 for Florida State's two decades of football glory, Mickey Andrews was reason 1-A.

Objective Support: The 2000 Sugar Bowl, in which Michael Vick dazzled against Andrews's defense, represents a marked exception in FSU's postseason history. Bowden's superb bowl record, a major pillar of his FSU legacy, would not exist if the Seminoles hadn't been able to defend well. Even in bowl losses (such as the 2001 Orange Bowl), Mickey Andrews had his side of the ball in top form. He leaves a long, interesting and legendary shadow in Tallahassee.

Subjective Claim: Georgia Tech at Duke, Nov. 14, 2009: The ACC Game Of The Year.

Objective Support: Even if Duke loses this Saturday to North Carolina, the Blue Devils would be able to tie for first place in the ACC Coastal Division with a win against the Yellow Jackets.

Subjective Claim: Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy do not deserve to be Heisman finalists, let alone Heisman winners, in 2009.

Objective Support: Florida 23, Tennessee 13; Florida 13, LSU 3; Florida 29, Mississippi State 19; Florida 23, Arkansas 20; Texas--with special teams and defensive touchdowns galore--38, Colorado 14; Texas 16, Oklahoma 13; Texas 34, Texas Tech 24. Tebow and McCoy were secondary and rather peripheral figures in these games, except for the fact that McCoy's saving tackle after throwing an interception preserved a Longhorn win versus Oklahoma.

Subjective Claim: Chip Kelly is your coach of the year in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Objective Support: LeGarrette Blount on Sept. 3; a 47-20 win over USC on Oct. 31; a not-yet-guaranteed but very likely Rose Bowl berth is in store for the Oregon Ducks.

Subjective Claim: Eye-for-an-eye is now an even more outdated form of legal ethics and judicial punishment, making the Old Testament even less relevant in this day and age. Where's the New Testament when you need it in Gainesville, Fla.?

Objective Support: Brandon Spikes did too much poking around against Georgia, although the star linebacker laudably suspended himself for the whole game this Saturday against Vanderbilt; Tim Tebow lamely explained that anything nasty Florida did in the Cocktail Party was replicated by Georgia, a remark which did far more to diminish Tebow's reputation than his insignificant no-show at a press conference following the Mississippi State game; Urban Meyer is not acting like an adult right now, plain and simple.

Subjective Claim: Let's not be calling Iowa's win at Michigan State a quality win, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Objective Support: Minnesota, sans Eric Decker, 42, Michigan State 34.

Subjective Claim: Al Golden is the FBS coach of the year, non-AQ division.

Objective Support: Temple 27, Navy 24, in Annapolis, Md. The Owls are now bowl-eligible for the first time since 1979.

Subjective Claim: Southern Methodist is likely to have a winning season for the first time since 1997.

Objective Support: After upsetting Tulsa on the road, 27-13, June Jones's 4-4 Mustangs close with games against Rice, UTEP and Tulane (plus Marshall).

Subjective Claim: South Carolina. Second half of a season. You know the drill.

Objective Support: Three early fumbles. Three Tennessee touchdowns before anyone's seat was warm in Neyland Stadium. A predictable 31-13 loss... not in terms of the point spread, but in terms of Gamecock players not maintaining the consistency they need in order for the Carolina program to rise in the SEC.

Subjective Claim: Southern California's decisive loss should only make college football fans appreciate how impressive the Trojans have been this decade.

Objective Support: USC's 27-point margin of defeat at Oregon this past weekend exceeded the combined margin of the program's previous losses dating back to the 2004 season. Moreover, Arash Markazi of Sports Illustrated pointed out that the last time USC lost by more than seven points came in 2001, to Notre Dame (11). Simply phenomenal... by any objective measurement.

Subjective Claim: No, UTEP hasn't turned the corner after the uplifting win against Tulsa.

Objective Support: UAB 38, UTEP 33.

Subjective Claim: Never give up. Never, ever give up.

Objective Support: Illinois defender Terry Hawthorne chased down Michigan receiver Roy Roundtree at the Illini 1 early in the third quarter of Saturday's game in Champaign, Ill. The play was likely to merely delay the inevitable, but when Illinois made a goal-line stand preserved in part by quality replay officiating from the Big Ten, the momentum changed in a game Michigan led by only six points (13-7). Sure enough, the Illini found inspiration from Hawthorne, rolling the Wolverines in the game's final 27 minutes en route to a 38-13 win. Illinois had mailed in the season until Terry Hawthorne gave Ron Zook's club new reason to compete. Nice job all around, boys.

Subjective Claim: Jim Leavitt coached extremely well against West Virginia, as noted in this week's Monday Morning Quarterback column; Bill Stewart, one of the Weekly Affirmation's favorite people in all of college football, sadly didn't match Leavitt on the sidelines last Friday in Tampa.

Objective Support: Stewart punted from the South Florida 33 in the third quarter, with his team trailing, 27-19.

Part II. PR, Pleading and Persuasion: Viewing the Peripheral as Primary

First, watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz7Wou_5Sv0&NR=1

Convinced by the interpretation applied to the video? Within a narrow context, it's an impressive and worthy effort. At the "0:11" mark of the video, it does appear that the Indiana receiver's foot is off the ground from that point onward (until falling out of bounds, of course). With the slick packaging and formatting involved on the part of the video's producer, it makes a pretty strong case for the claim that this was an incomplete pass. Maybe the Big Ten replay reviewer was on to something in Iowa City. The Weekly Affirmation needs to admit when he's wrong, you know.

There's just one problem: The "0:09" point of the video, preceding the raised foot of the Indiana receiver.

Unless the Hoosier pass catcher made a very conscious effort to somehow twist and torque his foot so that it would improbably defy the laws of gravity and stay in the air until it was out of bounds, it appears that the foot did touch down, which would explain the subsequent few seconds in which that same foot elevated and then remained above the ground. But even if you remain convinced that the foot did not tap down in bounds at "0:09", one thing is relatively certain: Indisputable video evidence, a weighty standard intended to ensure that on-field calls are reversed only when absolutely apparent to the naked eye, did not exist on that play.

If it was said before, it has to sadly be said again: Had the on-field official ruled the play to be an incomplete pass, the replay review--bound by an obligation to find indisputable video evidence in order to overturn a call--would have had a tough time awarding a touchdown to Indiana. Any subsequent upholding of an incomplete pass call would have been entirely fair and reasonable; moreover, such an act would have been consistent with the values and principles replay reviewers are supposed to honor and uphold.

However, because the on-field ruling was a touchdown, the replay reviewer needed overwhelming proof that the Hoosier receiver never dragged his foot in bounds. That the reviewer looked at the play, so clear in its inscrutability, and found what represented (for him) indisputable video evidence, represents an outrageous violation of the replay reviewer's code.

What, then, is the point of this video study session? No, it's not to say that Indiana clearly scored a touchdown. No, it's not to say that Iowa would have lost if the Big Ten replay reviewer had done his job correctly (which he most certainly did not). No, it's not to say that Iowa didn't earn its win (the Hawkeyes did earn it, but with more help than they ought to have received), or that the officials decided the outcome in favor of Iowa (they merely influenced it, but didn't decide it).

The point of this little YouTube classroom exercise is to show that, in our collective attempt to prove ourselves to each other--in various fields of competition or endeavor--we (and this includes me) quickly lose sight of what really matters in American society.

Not to turn this into an extended critique of the way human beings operate around the world, but it sure seems as though the inclinations of individuals are being continuously transferred to larger institutions, such that corporations, governments and schools (among various large-scale entities) are adopting the mental and emotional characteristics of human persons. Just as the college football fan feels the insatiable desire to be proven right on a replay, and to know that what he sees on a video matches his allegiance on Saturdays, it also stands that organizations have to be proven right before their peers or vindicated in the court of public evaluation, lest they somehow lose face or appear to be less than what they really are.

In this attempt on the part of organizations--and the individuals who comprise them--to defend themselves, larger and more precious principles get ignored at best, and trashed at worst. One needs to pry more deeply in order to understand such a concept and how it can be observed in action.

Here's what college football fans, in my estimation, still don't understand about the Big Ten replay review officiating in the Indiana-Iowa game: The reason why the reviewer's performance was (and is, and will be) so thoroughly odious, and so entirely worthy of reprimand and sanction, is not that the reviewer missed an easy call; the plays demanding review in Hoosiers-Hawkeyes were actually very hard to examine. If you're viewing this as just one more rant against replay reviewers in a season of bad officiating, you're missing the point. There are principles at work here, principles that are being ignored by the all-too-human need for people and organizations to feel vindicated and justified in the full view of others.

The reason why the replay reviewer performed so horribly in Iowa City, and--this is a strong but justified statement--committed a grievous offense against the Indiana University football team (though not a sin; theology students should know the difference between sin and evil) is that he trampled on the concept of justice as representing a harmonious set of relationships among human persons, defined primarily by equal and consistent application of the law to everyone in a community.

Earlier in the Indiana-Iowa game, the officials had ruled that a Hoosier receiver, this time in the back of the south end zone at Kinnick Stadium (and not on the side of that same end zone), bobbled the ball and did not have full possession when his feet were in bounds. Replay showed a lack of indisputable video evidence needed to overturn the call and give Indiana a touchdown. Had the play been ruled a touchdown on the field, the call possibly could have stood, but it would have been possible to interpret the play as having enough evidence to overturn the on-field call and rule an incomplete pass. Indiana received bad luck, but the officiating--on the field and in the replay booth--was fair and, moreover, wise. The principles of replay, particularly the defining pillar pertaining to indisputable video evidence, were judiciously employed.

The fact (and it is a fact) that those very same principles were so manifestly ignored on the touchdown Indiana lost in the third quarter is what makes the replay reviewer's performance so appalling. The offense against the Indiana Hoosiers was not an inability to see a play clearly; anything but. The offense lay in the fact that clarity was so evidently lacking in the review of Indiana's third-quarter touchdown.

In the absence of clarity--thunderous, obvious, overturn-justifying clarity--the replay reviewer was duty-bound, as a moral and ethical being, to not only apply officiating concepts (indisputable video evidence) evenly, but--if he needed another "behavioral tiebreaker" in his heart--to also follow the principle of rewarding good effort if a call was 50-50.

By overturning the work of the on-field official, and then taking away the performance of the Indiana receiver who exerted so artfully to smoke an Iowa defender and then produce a tough, acrobatic catch near a boundary line, the replay reviewer thoroughly assaulted any and all of the principles of officiating: When in doubt, uphold existing rulings; when in doubt, reward good effort; when in doubt, let players decide games; when in doubt, use common sense; when in doubt, seek balance.

If you, as a reader, still think this is just another anti-officiating jeremiad, perhaps a step back from a specific focus on Indiana-Iowa is in order. If you want to understand the deeper underlying reason why officiating involves moral and ethical components--components which were tossed into the dumpster during Hoosiers-Hawkeyes--let's go back to September 26 in Ann Arbor, Mich.

On that day, Indiana lost another heartbreaking Big Ten battle to the Michigan Wolverines, as a late-game interception by Michigan's Donovan Warren, mystifyingly upheld by the replay reviewer, sealed the Hoosiers' fate.

As was the case in Indiana-Iowa, the replay reviewer in Indiana-Michigan erred not necessarily because of an inability to see a play correctly; it was possible (not easy, but possible) to conclude that Warren might have won the battle for the ball with a Hoosier receiver. The error committed by the replay reviewer lay in the fact that a principle was violated.

Anyone who watched or later read about that late-September contest knows that the controversial interception involving Donovan Warren concerned the application of "simultaneous possession," the portion of the football rulebook which requires the defensive player to wrest the ball from the offensive player, and have fully independent possession of the ball, in order to claim an interception in a two-man battle for the pigskin. Much like the wrongly overturned touchdown in Indiana-Iowa, the glaringly obvious--and infuriatingly inadequate--aspect of the replay reviewer's performance lay in the fact that replay showed a definitive LACK OF CLARITY on the play.

Maybe Warren did wrest the ball away before his knee touched the ground, maybe he didn't. The point was that the play was difficult to cleanly assess.

Because a lack of clarity so thoroughly defined that situation, the reviewer--weirdly but genuinely--was handed a set of circumstances that should have made it painfully easy to make the proper moral and ethical ruling consistent with the principles of justice and the evenhanded application of existing law. Naturally, if a defender must have independent possession of a ball, and it's impossible to tell if said defender had truly independent possession of the ball, then without any doubt whatsoever, a replay reviewer must--as someone tasked with justly enforcing the rules of football in connection with his prolonged examination of a monitor--rule that simultaneous possession existed.

It's frankly inconceivable, to this day, why the replay reviewer in Indiana-Michigan ruled against the Hoosiers on that play... even though (yes, the Weekly Affirmation keeps tabs...) the ruling on the field was that Warren intercepted the pass for Michigan. The whole notion of simultaneous possession militates against a ruling of an interception, in the absence of clear and overwhelming evidence that the defensive player secured fully independent possession of the ball at the time his knees (and the knees of the competing offensive player) were down.

So, to bring this essay full-circle, the larger reason why the Weekly Affirmation was and is (and will continue to be) so manifestly upset about the Indiana-Iowa officiating from the Big Ten replay booth had very little to do with the Iowa perspective on life. Actually, the anger surrounding the replay booth's performance in that game stemmed from the memory of Indiana being jobbed--and being victimized by yet another pathetically inadequate application of basic officiating principles--a month earlier in Ann Arbor.

None of these replay-booth rulings were morally or ethically offensive because the reviewer "saw" the play wrong; they were outrageously offensive to the hard-working coaches and players of Indiana University's football team (which deserves a bowl game, but won't get one in all likelihood... pretty big price to pay for someone else's incompetence...) because they so clearly violated the tenets of justice upon which civilization rests.

If various rules and principles demand that an absence of clarity should produce given sets of judgments (simultaneous possession goes to the offensive team; the burden of proof in simultaneous possession situations lies with the defender, who must show complete and independent possession; indisputable video evidence is needed to overturn a call on the field) , a team ought to expect to receive the benefit of the doubt in replay situations when said absence of clarity exists. Yet, Indiana and Bill Lynch have been thoroughly robbed in broad daylight by two separate Big Ten replay reviewers, and THAT, Dear Brutus, is why the fault lies not in our technology, which can dress up YouTube videos to suit our rooting interests, but in ourselves.

What has been the foremost result of this firestorm surrounding Indiana-Iowa? No, it's not that the Big Ten replay reviewer has been suspended--hasn't happened. No, it's not that Indiana has gained sufficient redress of its grievances; not at the time this column was written, anyway.

No, the most immediate outcome of the Indiana-Iowa aftermath has been a new and all-out public relations push on the part of the University of Iowa to tout its football team's credentials, at a time when a win over Ohio State will quite clearly take care of the issue on the field.

Yes, while Indiana's football team is left in the cold, completely and repeatedly wronged by replay arbiters, Iowa is spending money--make that, WASTING money--to promote a team that, if it wins on the field, will continue to make various public relations tactics moot and irrelevant.

Catching the Iowa flu public relations virus is Boise State, which is hiring a PR firm for the gathering Bowl Championship Series storm.

Principles of justice and fairness get violated, and as a result, football programs waste money on public relations.

That's today's United States of America, where money gets wasted like nobody's business, and where incendiary politicians (on both sides of the aisle) who destroy our body politic get hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations after they throw flames over the airwaves, with a camera and microphone conveniently at the ready.

We have so many misplaced priorities in our country, and are wasting so many dollars on public relations and advertising, while families suffer and children go under-fed. Sadly, college football and the schools connected to the sport are not modeling a welcome example of counter-cultural and socially beneficial behavior... neither are its replay officials, particularly in Big Ten games involving the Indiana Hoosiers.

The next time a fan base wants to doctor up and send a YouTube video, spare the effort on that souped-up technological endeavor with the strong public relations undercurrent all too akin to a scorched-earth political campaign. Use your energy to help the helpless, and re-direct any funds (that might have initially gone into the development of a technological project) to help struggling family farmers in this age of increasing agribusiness domination of our food-production system.

It's time for our nation to reacquire proper understandings of proportionality, priorities, and principles of justice. College football can play a role in this process, as the Indiana-Iowa example shows... with complete clarity.

It's time for this sport to get past the PR and the fan-produced YouTube videos, and to set sights on ensuring that principles of justice are upheld before anything else, and that the combination of human energy and resources--which only receives one lifetime per person--is devoted to truly worthwhile causes.