Arkansas Fans Have Three Reasons to Be Upset

It's tough enough to beat Florida in Gainesville, and it's next to impossible when the officiating crew is putting the screws to you. Check out two calls and one non-call in the fourth quarter of Saturday's game, won by Gators, 23-20. Florida had to rally from a 20-13 deficit in the final eight minutes, and each of these plays were part of Florida's comeback.

Arkansas was flagged 10 times for 92 yards. Florida had three infractions for 16 yards.

It makes you wonder how level the playing field is in the Southeastern Conference.

Comments

[twitter.com/achidester]

This game was truly incredible. Virtually the entire Florida team does a dance rountine after positive plays and nothing gets called, yet an Arkansas player shows a shred of emotion and it gets flagged.

And the two penalties on the drive when Florida tied...wow. Just wow.

I like Alabama, but I'll be cheering even more hard for them if/when they play Florida. I hope they win by 20 points.

[Sean]

The NCAA has to go to national refs. Bias is apparent not only in nonconference games but also within conference games. The SEC has an interest in having a team play for the national championship and also getting a second team into a BCS game. Florida has a shot and Arkansas doesn't, so the calls slant Florida's way.

[Bobby Fenton]

The unsportsmanlike calls across the baord nationally are horrible, and in the SEC they are the worst of the worst. Up until this year no one has seemed to care. I'm glad people are waking up because the integrity of games is at stake. The two called on Arkansas were ridiculous, as are 99% of personal foul calls.

However...

I think it stops there in the UF-Arkansas game. Aside from the two personal fouls, I thought the P.I. calls/non-calls were at best "go either way calls" and not blatantly bad. You guys are reaching hard for something that isn't wuite there.

You are also neglecting the egregious holding of Jermaine Cunningham by an Arkansas lineman on their long touchdown pass in the 4th quarter.

So if you're point is that SEC officiating sucks, that point is well taken. If your point is that the officiating is "biased", I think you guys need to look at who is the party that is really biased (hint: you). SEC officials suck, period. It's not a Florida thing.

[Beavis]

@Bobby Fenton

You hit the nail on the head.

Those calls against Arkansas on that last Florida drive were poor. BUT - the officials also missed the blatant hold on the Arkansas TD.

UF still makes the national championship game losing to Arkansas and winning out. To think the SEC would instruct the officials to favor UF in a game like this is pretty ridiculous.

The blogger leaves all that out though in another far reaching attempt (see previous SEC sucks against the spread type posts) to make make the SEC look like less than what it is - the dominant conference in college football today.

[roo]

bobby, you're obviously a florida fan and i'm obviously a hog fan, but "go either way calls"? Really? is http://www.hogdb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/offensive.gif "go either way"? Are you joking?

Holding - Florida gives up six sacks and gets dominated on the offensive line but doesn't have a single holding penalty all day? How about you watch http://www.secdigitalnetwork.com/default.aspx?ShowId=176785 . I'm not sure I see any holding in the vid including on the touchdown pass, but if I do the offender is not the team in white. You can also see Sturgis' field goal kicked with 0 on the play clock.

[Bobby Fenton]

Roo-

I am definitely a Gator fan, but I would like to think I am capable of being objective. Watching the Riley Cooper play in the end zone live in the stadium (I was in that end zone) I didn't think much of it. Seeing it over again in real time on DVR, as I said above, it was a close play. I don't think O.P.I. would have been the worst call ever, but I also don't think not calling it was the worst call ever either. Either way, to insinuate that a fix is in for Florida based on these calls is waaaaaaay ridiculous.

As for the long touchdown pass, watch the right tackle hold #49 as Mallet changes direction from dropping back to moving forward in the pocket. Again, not the worst non-call ever, but he was holding. But my point is that aside from the personal foul calls, which were admittedly terrible, I don't think any of these calls stand out as being juiced one way or the other, and for The Wiz to insinuate otherwise is wrong.

[Bobby Fenton]

Oh and I agree that the 51-yard field goal happened a split second after that play clock expired.

[T-Bone]

What the ref saw was the Florida player getting blasted and the Arkansas player taunting. As usual the refs nail the second guy.

If the Arkansas player had just hit the Florida player and kept running, there would have been no foul.

[chris]

Haha, you'd like to think you can be objective, but it is pretty apparent you aren't. I am not an Arkansas fan, but that was really, really poor officiating, so bad and so one-sided that it is not surprising that people raise the question about the SEC protecting its star team (particularly with the SEC having a down year and needing its two star teams to keep winning). Unfortunately, officiating across all of college football is pretty bad. And the question also has to be raised about why Tebow is allowed to get away with so much extra celebration and taunting when other players get flagged for not nearly as much. This isn't the NBA - there should not be one set of rules for stars and another set for everyone else.

[Bobby Fenton]

Chris-

You have cited no examples from Saturday's game nor have you directly refuted anything I have said.

As far as celebration goes, we are all already in agreement that the celebration calls and rules are horrible and that they need to stop calling it altogether unless there is an example of direct taunting of an opposing player after a score. Otherwise, they can do whatever as long as it doesn't delay the PAT, in my opinion at least.

[Norm Schroud]

Florida has had a SLEW of calls cost them in games; Most every fan of every team will atests that their team has too.
To say Florida or their players should "give back" a penalty or refuse it is absurd! Also, how do you find fault in Floridas' players or their fans IN THE MAKING of the bad call(s)? The refs call it, not the players!..again, Florida has seen MANY calls go against them, check the history or who has had MORE penalties: (Or, just ASSume you're right and blow-off at the mouth un-educated; probably more your style anyway).
Conspiracy!...is this your first year watching Sports?...of ANY KIND!..Conspiracy, sheesh When you get all the way up to 21, maybe you'll see how silly you are being here; Yeah, I remember when I was a 12-year old College Football fan....conspiracy just made ood sense!
Losing teams generally have a gripe about the officiating (some times very legit), and a lot of times so do the winning teams. This happens!....Watch a few games where a team you dont HATE is playing, then report back to your masses, hater!
I hope Alabama beats Florida by 20, too!....Just so you can feel all good again, about College Football. GO YOU!

[ChrisB]

Let's see, so we have one UF fan saying there are no examples, presumably because he is so "objective" he watches the three videos linked above containing blatantly bad officiating and self-servingly claims they were "close calls." And then we have another UF fan that, when he isn't going nuts, trots out the old straw man claiming someone, don't know who, is claiming that UF should have given the calls back, and making the complete non-sequiter of a point that at some point in their history UF has been on the receiving end of bad calls. Look guys, just admit UF got a little help from the refs in this game. It is OK to just kind of shrug your shoulders, smirk, and say nothing when this happens, but don't try to change reality. The issue here is that SEC officiating is bad. College football officiating is bad. If the mere thought that refs did a bad job and it worked in your favor leads to wild spasms of verbal diarrhea, then just put the blinders back on and put on the soothing sounds of Verne Lundquist telling you how great you are.

[Bob Frank]

I can't believe that a 'fix' was on. It was an obvious case of very poor officating by an incompetent group of bozos.

[Bobby Fenton]

Chirs B-

I think if you read above you'd see that we have all agreed that SEC officiating is terrible. No one is shrugging their shoulders. People need to be fired or at the very least held accountable, and they never are.

But I maintain that the personal foul calls are the worst of it, and that both P.I. things are close calls, and I maintain that to insinuate that there is a fix in favor of Florida is ridiculous. Bob Frank has it right. It's just terrible officiating from the same crew that already has a reputation. They should be disbanded.

[TBlank]

not buying the could go either way argument.... even the announcers were talking of the horrendous calls. The FIX was in and the SEC knows it! WIll they discipline the ref's; not a chance/ GO BAMA! and TEXAS

[Tim Y]

The unbiased announcers questioned four calls/non-calls against the Hogs. Everyone is forgetting the play-by-play announcer's comments that he was surprised Fla. wasn't flagged for a late hit on Mallett. That's because they didn't have time to show the replay.

Let's see, how many call did they question about Fla.? Oh, Fla. only committed THREE PENALTIES FOR 16 YARDS! Does anyone think Fla. committed only three penalties and Ark committed 10 for 92 yards? I looked through the stats of numerous teams in games played on Saturday and here are the team penalty yards: 95, 40, 55, 60, 56, 55, 24, 65, 90, 71, 42, 45, 60, 113, 33, 25, 76, 20,125, etc. etc. Sorry I am too tired to type in the names, look them up for yourself if you doubt me. Didn’t see any other 16s.

You Fla. fans claim Ark was holding on one touchdown? Do you also believe Fla. didn’t hold the entire game?

How could anyone look at the pass interference called against Ark (tikiky-tackey per the announcer) and the non call for Fla (definitely interference per the announcer) and not see something amiss. Either call both or neither.

I don’t believe in conspiracies, but I think the refs were incompetent and got caught up in the atmosphere of the “Swamp”. If they make calls against Ark they get load cheers, dare penalize Fla. and they get the wrath of the fans.

Even the SEC officials had to admit the unsportsmanlike penalty was wrong.

Finally, Tim Tebow’s constant celebrations of his own great deeds makes him look like a jerk.

[Roddy]

Nobody here seems to be considering that this is the same officiating crew that helped keep LSU undefeated at UGA a couple of weeks ago with the bogus celebration that the SEC also had to come out & say the crew screwed up that call. Why does this officiating crew continue to get games with teams that are in BCS contention? I'm not an Arkansas or UF fan, just calling it like I see it. The SEC stands to benefit greatly financially by having 2 BCS teams instead of just 1 and keeping that alive is imperative. A 1 loss UF team going into the championship game with UA and losing is possibly out of the BCS. A 1 loss UF team beating an undefeated UA team and there is no SEC team in the NC game and probably only 1 BCS bowl. It's all about the money, not UF getting calls. If the records were reversed, UF has the 10 penalties to Arkansas' 3 in the game and all the bad calls/awful spots & measurements go in Arkansas' favor.

[Steelwheel]

Why is no one mentioning the multiple celebrations by Tebow that were not called? Those were worse in many ways than the one's discussed above. Tebow seems to be able to do anything he wants on the field with no fear of being called by the refs.

The officials should have just worn blue and orange for this game and gotten it over with.

[joey]

what you dont relize is hindsight is always 20 20 but in the game there is no looking at it in slow mo you make your dision at game speed not slowmo no rewind none of that so if you think you can do better become an offical otherwise take the good with the bad

[Bah]

The first pass interference was called b/c the Ark. defender pushes the wide receiver prior to him being interfered with. I actually agree with this call. The personal foul was ridiculous, but was in response to the "taunting". Off. pass interference could have and should have been called in the end-zone, but still not the worst no call I've seen.

Regarding the LSU-UGA game, I thought that LSU had a 40 yard kickoff return and scored a touchdown on a 33 yard run when a field goal would have won it. Had LSU barely cleared the upright on a last second field goal, then yes the call gave them the game, otherwise it influenced the game but didn't decide it.

Holding could probably be called on every single offensive play run by every team to play football.

[Lake Murray]

People can say what they want but over and over, year after year it is apparent that the SEC team who is favored to go to a BCS Bowl and play for a National Championship gets calls (or no-calls) favoring them ... that is something that is not debatable ... any objective observer with nothing to gain by calling out the officials would agree. I have seen it happen against Tenessee when playing Florida, Vanderbilt when playing Florida and South Carolina. Wasn't it just a couple years ago against LSU that the official actually goes up and HITS the South Carolina quarterback. Ridiculous!! LSU won the N.C. that year if I recall. SEC officiating is not just BAD at time it is down right biased. Too many examples can be cited to just sweep it under the rug or shrug it off as "sour grapes" ... where there is smoke there is Fire. Believe it!!

[Eddie Tea]

It felt like I was watching a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial. The whining Gator fans just weren't ready to go home yet. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. I'm looking forward to Tebow's entry into the NFL where he will be squashed like a bug. It's sickening how biased the officials and media are. Get over the love affair.

For the record I don't like either team. I just watched a poorly written script with an obvious ending... not very entertaining

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1228805262]

There needs to be no fine or suspension for the referees. They should be fired on the spot for making bogus calls, if you were this incompetent at your job you would be fired. This is the only way to get the point across to these moronic referees.

[Buff Fan]

Try watching a Texas game in the Big 12. That conference is a fixed as they come.

[Bulldog Nation]

Being a Bulldog fan, I find this completely despicable. It's pathetic at best that the only argument Gator fans have is that these were all "judgment calls" in the heat of the moment. It's a bit ironic that these judgment calls favor the poster child for college football. As much as the LSU call killed my Bulldog's season, the abundance of call/non-calls that favored the Gator's is absolutely unsettling.

In addition, these cocky celebrations and Tebow Gator claps need to be assessed. Just because the rule needs to be amended and you screwed the Bulldog's out of a potential win, doesn't mean we create a double standard for Tebow and friends. Penalize one...penalize them all.