Original? What would be original would be the refs and SEC office not bending over backwards to ensure the Gumps get more than a fair shake. Having to defeat Bama and the refs at the same time is definitely nothing original or new.
I have been watching SEC football for over 4 decades and I can say that the SEC referees underperform and are not as good as they need to be. They make a lot of bad calls and don't seem to ever pay any price for doing so. But I have never seen them being crooked for one team year after year. I'd like to see the stats to prove that if someone has them. They do tend to protect championship contenders late in the season and Bama is a frequent contender. But we have benefited from this, too. The SEC makes a lot of money. They should not only make their refs undergo NFL-style evaluations like the Big-12 referees do, but they should be paid professionally and paid well. Make their ratings public and every year, give the top 20% a raise and fire the bottom 20%. Officiating would improve.
Which SEC teams have been the most and least penalized over the last five years? Here’s a breakdown, from the least to the most: As of 2014 Rank Team G Pen Pen. Yds Pen/G Yds/G 1 Alabama 67 301 2,444 4.49 36.48 2 Kentucky 62 313 2,670 5.05 43.06 3 Miss State 64 331 2,718 5.17 42.47 4 Tennessee 62 345 2,735 5.56 44.11 5 Ole Miss 63 354 2,905 5.62 46.11 6 Vanderbilt 63 363 2,871 5.76 45.57 7 South Carolina 66 368 2,979 5.58 45.14 8 Arkansas 63 391 3,092 6.21 49.08 9 Auburn 66 396 3,438 6.00 52.09 10 LSU 66 433 3,423 6.56 51.86 11 Georgia 67 438 3,453 6.54 51.54 12 Florida 65 490 3,859 7.54 59.37 Missouri* 26 139 1,062 5.35 40.85 Texas A&M* 26 161 1,425 6.19 54.81 *Reflects two years in the SEC
Therein lies the problem. Fans of other conferences think their refs are the worst, too. It's mostly all they watch, for one thing. I know a guy who called LSU baseball games. He was paid $500.00 per game. That was over 10 years ago.
$500 a game is not bad for college baseball if they pay for your meals and travel expenses. I knew a guy in the 80's who umped American Legion baseball and he only got $15 a game.
High school umps get $80.00. Well that was 5 years ago. They've recently gotten a raise. I know I wrote checks for two 8th grade bball refs recently that were 67 bucks each (for two games).
Well . . . maybe. Someone always has to come in first in a list. But if you graph it , then there should be a trend with a clear spike for teams getting hammered and a distinct dip for teams getting it easy. To make it fair for the new teams we'll use average yards per penalty. So . . . there is a clear trend between Kentucky and LSU that seems to represent the norm for 12 teams. Sharp spike (.98) for Florida as most hammered and a lesser dip (.56) for Bama as least hammered.
