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Since Miles won't say anything, I will. This is beyond bad officiating. It's so undeniably awful,...

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Since Miles won't say anything, I will. This is beyond bad officiating. It's so undeniably awful, I'm beginning to believe conspiracy nuts who claim the SEC is protecting its heavyweight teams (Florida and Alabama) since, you know, every poor call in the last month has involved, uh, Florida and Alabama.

Conspiracy theorists about SEC officiating might be on to something - Matt Hayes - College Football - Sporting News. A mainstream sports journalist is saying it now. For the record, I don't buy into any conspiracy theory about the SEC protecting Bama and Florida through deliberately poor officiating. A conspiracy that large would depend on probably a dozen or more people being involved, and I just can't see such a conspiracy possibly holding silent. Plus, if the conspiracy were to break, a lot more harm would be done to the SEC than would be worth risking to get the benefit gotten. I just think the officiating is bad, and has been for years. I will forever remember 2007 not only as the year of LSU's national championship, but also as the year in which it was a 15 yard penalty to hit a quarterback who was almost out of bounds. This year we have had 4 games (LSU vs. Georgia, Mississippi State vs. Florida, Arkansas vs. Florida, LSU vs. Alabama) marred by demonstrably bad calls or difficult-to-defend judgment calls on big plays at critical times. It's impossible to say with any confidence that any of the calls were decisive in the games in which they occurred, but there is just no reason why the SEC should be plagued with this.