Clay, I’ve been listening to you on the radio in the mornings and thought this question may be good for the show, but can’t wait until then, but will listen tomorrow anyway.
I know there’s the ref conversation has gone on ad nauseam, but I’m wondering, because I’ve had conversations with Auburn and Bama fans (multi generational), that really believe the refs are going to take care of the original schools. Don’t know if that’s true, but when I see that the refs blew another call with Auburn and just admit it and fine the coach, my questions to you is: Do they care? Do they care about the other half of the conference? Do they run the business and need some to support the execs, but take care of the execs. Just wondering what the dynamic here is. In theory we are new to the conference and understand we may not get a fair shake. I get that. I’m actually a bit ok with it, just to be in the conference. But do the refs care knowing we know they lie and SUCK!. I’ll hang up and listen. I hope you can get some discussion on radio tomorrow morning on this.
Good post. But I disagree with you about being okay getting bad calls because we are “New”. A&M are “Newer” than we are in the Conference. But they don’t get shorted as often as we do. Further, the rules must be enforced equally to all Conference schools, or they are not rules at all. If the other Schools are just hear to be the sacrificial lambs to the Tide, Auburn, Georgia, and Florida, just what are we getting being in this Conference? The honor of being said teams punching bags? If so, we should have never left the SWC for the SEC. Sure, we may get a bigger check from the Conference, but so what? We sacrificed our football teams competitiveness for financial security? We can get that in the Big 12.
No. He said they don’t happen all the time. If you constantly are leaving yourself vulnerable to a single bad call, sooner or later one will jump up and bite you. Play better and a bad call won’t hurt you. Simple.
The ones that are particularly painful to us are the ones we really notice. Every school in the league can point to an “officiating injustice”. Even Bama points to the single second that was placed back on the clock that allowed the “Kick Six” by Auburn.
What defines playing better? I would say it is winning games - which this most recent display of favoritism by SEC officials deprived us of. The way the program has struggled, given the positives we see at 2-2: can you imagine we sit at 3-1, ranked in the polls? Yet here we are, subject to conference bias (call a spade a spade) that will not get any better until we start winning? And BTW, lets give A$M a home game and don’t demand one in return. After the screwing we got with this year’s schedule you would think we are due something!?
Playing better is being in a position that the failure to call it a fumble didn’t give Auburn a chance to score the winning points. Bad calls don’t matter nearly as much in a blowout.
Not sure it is strictly old school SEC vs. new… it’s more like Big Dog vs. little dog. Bama, Georgia, Florida, and Auburn have carried the mantle for the SEC when it comes to NC’s in recent memory and the same reason Lebron and Jordan get/got virtually every call is in play. The SEC money teams get the call the same way Texas (back when) and Ohio State now get them. The only way out of this is to become a Big Dog.
My observation from almost 30 years in the SEC is that the ranked teams get the benefit of the calls. And if #1 is playing #15, #1 is going to get the calls. An underdog has to play significantly better to win. You’d almost think the league is trying to protect ranked teams…
So the bottom line from Clay and Swinney is play better. Which means get better players. So. You are both for paying players like most other teams in the Conference does.
When I was in high school in the State of Washington, the Huskies had an All American running back, who had been drafted by a Pro team. He was asked by a reporter what the big difference in college and professional football would be and he answered, “the pay cut” In those days pro teams paid about 5,000 a year.
I agree with Clay and a few others on here. If we had played “well” at Auburn we would have won that game in spite of the awful call at the end. We left many points on the field that day with poor execution in critical situations. Though Kiffen’s antics are amusing, I think Coach Pittman has handled that situation very well. Let’s play better and things will take care of themselves.
There were a dozen or more things that happened at Auburn that could have changed the outcome of the game. One of those things was the blown call by the referees in the final minute.
All fine and dandy about winning to get respect with SEC Officiating. I assume that means 4-5 years straight of winning the SEC and/or Nat Championship. I can recall more than few atrocious calls against us during winning seasons when we were right in mix at the top.
Also big difference in judgement calls verses wrong calls and quick whistles per actual rules of the game.
My question was pretty simple. Do the refs care. I got a lot of different answers about whether they should or shouldn’t happen or if teams should put them in a better position. But question was directed to the refs. Do they care that they screw things up? Not a single poster answered my question. Amazing.