It hasn’t exactly been the best of weekends for SEC officials.
First, there was the Florida-Arkansas officiating debacle -- yes, I can run stuff into the ground with the best of ‘em -- in which one call was officially deemed wrong and two others that still have a cloud of suspicion hanging over them three days after the fact.
Now comes word of some kicking-game shenanigans that may have occurred during the Alabama-South Carolina game the same day.
According to Gamecocks head coach Steve Spurrier, the holder for Alabama on placekicks, P.J. Fitzgerald, used a piece of tape to mark the spot of two field goal and two extra point attempts.
Per the Tuscaloosa News and one’s own common sense, that’s just a tad bit illegal.
SEC Associate Commissioner Charles Bloom told the News that the league office is “looking into” the situation and that it was just brought to the league’s attention very recently.
While this is nowhere near as egregious as some of the other SEC officiating head-scratchers, one has to wonder how an officiating crew can go an entire game not noticing one school’s special teams unit breaking a rule. Allegedly.
It’s borderline embarrassing that the most powerful, money-rich conference in college football has been the subject of so many officiating blunders, missteps and outright bad calls.
I’d chalk it up to the fact that a pivotal team has yet to be on the short end of one of these calls, but that would be a cynical tack to take. Far be it from me to hitch a ride on the cynical route...