A hot topic this year has been the relative awfulness of SEC officiating. Obviously, this includes but is not limited to the Georgia-LSU game and the Florida-Arkansas game. It's very easy to tell who the refs had their money on in these games.
What I'm talking about in these two games is mostly the "excessive celebration" call for UGA-LSU and the "unnecessary roughness" and "pass interference" calls in the UF-ARK game. The reason I put quotes is because all three calls were completely and totally incorrect. By the way, it was the same officiating crew that made all three of these calls.
The first call, the "excessive celebration" on A.J. Green, was total BS, and the ref who made the call should be embarrassed because it was such a bad call. A.J. caught the ball and immediately started running to the sideline. However, his teammates were the ones who kept him on the field. No one did anything wrong during this "celebration", except that they were happy because they just probably won the game. To make matters, the same ref called a penalty on an LSU player for no reason at all except as a "make-up" call.
The second call, the "pass interference" against Arkansas, was nothing but a great defensive play. The Hogs defender was covering the receiver and knew the ball was coming, so he turned around to try to intercept the ball. While he was knocking the ball away, he backed into the Gators receiver, and a flag immediately came out. Since when do you flag a player for a great defensive play? Oh wait, you don't.
The third penalty, the "unnecessary roughness" that also went against Arkansas, was also a terrible call. A Florida offensive lineman was getting ready to lower his shoulder and take out a Hogs defender. However, the Hogs defender lowered his shoulder and blocked the Gator player, knocking him to the ground in the process. The two then started jawing, but the flag came out BEFORE any jawing took place. Since when is a great block a penalty? Never.
Here's a video of the BS unnecessary roughness call:
However, bad officiating isn't limited to just the SEC. According to the Georgia Sports Blog, the NFL flagged a player for THANKING GOD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with thanking God after you do something good.
To add to that point, Tim Tebow gets up after every time he runs and beats his chest and waves his arms, and he never gets flagged. WTF?
Let's just hope the refs have their money on Georgia for the Halloween UGA-UF game.
