I try not to buy into conspiracies, but McCarthy's knee was down and he had his hand on the ball...he grabs it...rolls right and makes a huge play. Then you get the obvious WR pick on the most important play of the game. That was an easy call...ref right there...and he swallowed his whistle.
The Big Ten wants Michigan and Ohio State undefeated going into this weekend. Close calls go to the undefeated team. In addition, if Iowa does get to the championship...we ain't getting anything close and they will mug our receivers. That's football.
I have been saying this for years and put up with the conspiracy theorist accusation. Noticed a definite increase in the numbers of posters starting to see the effect of the officiating and the strategic nature of the "mistakes."
First, dishonest or perhaps it's cousin, strategically placed officiating and scheduling (also dishonest, just not so overtly) should not be surprising. The Big Ten is a multibillion-dollar commercial enterprise. Doesn't every commercial enterprise seek to deliver its product in the most profitable manner possible? Of course. Doesn't every billion and above commercial enterprise seek to manipulate its market to generate the maximum profit? I mean, we've all heard of Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Berkshire Hathaway, Haliburton, Bear Stearns, Baine Capital, UBS, etc.. Why should anyone expect the Big Ten to behave differently?
Second, believe your eyes, not what other people tell you. How many of us watched the officials do whatever was necessary for Indiana to win. Bob Knight owned the Big Ten because his product line was very profitable. How many times did we watch an Indiana big man sneak up on a defender and block the defender in the back? Not even legal in football. Us geezers saw Indiana throw the ball directly into the pressers face, AFTER Bob Knight said that was the best way to break a press. Then, to prevent a reoccurrence of that dirty play the B!G passed another rule making it explicitly a technical foul. Indiana did it again the next season and the officials not only failed to call a T on the ball thrower, but they also called a T on the victim, claiming he threw a punch.
No one thought that live and the replay showed Kent Hill did nothing put stick his hand and arm and point (or maybe they thought it was a Three Stooges eye poke) directly at the guy that threw the ball in his face. Veteran and well-known officials both times. The 4th down jump against Purdue that wasn't called a couple of years ago. No official, and most certainly not a replay official, could have seen what vividly did not happen. How do you explain that collective bit of ****ery if not through gambling or a larger game fixing scheme?
We could all write pages on the strange calls that went against Iowa. The last 3 games of the 81 season produced the most corrupt stretch of officiating ever seen in college BBall. So don't try to find explanations for what are obviously egregiously wrong calls or no calls when you know there really isn't any.
Third, review the games in your head. How often does a "poorly" officiating game see all or most of the "errors" benefit the higher profile and, perhaps more importantly, more profitable team/school? Like Michigan/Illinois. In whose financial interest is an Illinois victory more important than a top five match up for the B!g Title game and a probable shot at the playoffs? Anyone? It's not really even in Illinois' financial interest given the revenue sharing model. All that money certainly incentivizes every school to favor the status quo and disincentivizes too many actual complaints by the member institutions.
Four, the continuous use of the same officials, making the same "mistakes", some of which belie any credible explanation but dishonesty. I mean where else in life can one say they didn't see something that a video replay shows they could not have seen anything else or caught looking directly at the play why making the exactly wrong call. Drivers don't get that discretion. Where else in life can the same people making the same mistakes without any apparent improvement in performance be retained, sometimes for decades. Since nothing ever changes, no one ever gets fired and recognition of any errors comes once in a blue moon, certainly the law, and common sense would understand the B!G officials are doing exactly what their bosses want done. After 40 or 50 years of the same complaints, not just fans but media people as well, and nothing changes what other conclusions are possible.
Five, the David Stern NBA model. The NBA was dying. David Stern saved it through WWE wrestling marketing. Make sure the right teams won, got the best trades and free agents and keep the most lucrative markets in as long as possible. He advised the NFL to do the same when he was brought in for advice on the NFL free agency model, when it was first created. That's season fixing and Stern made no bones about it.
Six, it would be easy to do and easy to camouflage. No two people would ever really need to discuss anything I've mentioned. Maybe two or three at most. Remember the Big Ten has a century old culture so most new people just do what the people before them did.
The officials all know what the B!G wants. Some, probably most, wouldn't intentionally engage in devious corporate piracy. Some could just be easy tells. Guy thinks Dwight Howard's a thug. Make sure that guy officiates games that Michigan shouldn't win. Another guy hates Fran, think he's a dick. Make sure that guy officiates Iowa in our big games. And so on. Some guys, again probably most officials,
Finally, a sign of our times. I mean this in a nonpartisan way. Does anybody not think that almost every major institution of American life is corrupt at this time in our history? Everyone is screaming about something they think is corrupt, and for the most part everybody is more right than they think.
That's football really is a brief way of conceding everything I said above. It's football because that's exactly how businesses operate.