College football’s answer to Ed Hoculi is taking his talents to the professional level.
According to a report Friday from Football Zebras, longtime Big 12 official Mike Defee is leaving the college game to work in the NFL.
The site writes that Defee will work in the league office helping coach current NFL officials, particularly those in the referee position. This will be a natural position for him, according to his mentor Walt Anderson, as he told Referee magazine:
Mike Defee is the best all-around official that I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. First and foremost, he has that natural sense of leadership and, to me, that’s so important in a referee role. I think he would have been better than me, just because I believe he has the right attitude, the right approach and he understands what the commitment of time is to be really good as an official at that level and is willing to do that.
There really aren’t that many people willing to put in that kind of time and dedication. And he has the ability to break down video and recognize and see things that other people not only scan over, it’s invisible to them.
Defee, who owns four companies in southeast Texas in his day job, has officiated football games since 1995 and worked in the Big 12 since 2006. He was promoted to referee in 2010 and served in that role in the 2017 College Football Playoff title game.
In addition to his biceps, Defee is best known for administering every player with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty before last year’s Texas-Oklahoma game. “What happened out there is an embarrassment to everyone,” he said afterward.