College Football discourse is polarizing by nature. Fans and stakeholders alike are divided in opinion about essentially every facet of the sport. However there’s one thing that brings about almost unanimous agreement. Even the biggest of rivals with overt animosity can join hands to agree CFB officiating is a problem. It’s been one perpetually, and is one of those things still stuck in the dark ages. Not touched by the modernization and evolution affecting everything else around the sport. How many times have we witnessed blown calls alter the trajectory of not just a game, but a season. Heck, even domino into altering the trajectory of a season. But blown calls aren’t even the biggest gripe one national analyst has with the men in monochrome.
Conceded, referees and umpires missing calls is egregious. It blemishes the sacrilege of the game, pierces through the essence and spirit at its crux. But calls get blown across all sports all the time. Even professional sports, which often have more riding on them than CFB. Human error is acceptable to a degree. But what isn’t acceptable is the lack of nationalization and answerability. Deflecting blame that falls on your shoulders onto others. Josh Pate ranted about how the NCAA powers that be are causing referees to look worse than they actually are. By reiterating, for a second time, a weird wrinkle that makes College Football feel amateur even though it’s a multibillion dollar entity. It’s 2025, and different conferences still have different standards.
Speaking over his “Josh Pate College Football Show” on April 6th, the namesake host addressed the elephant in the room around officiating. “College football officiating is broken. I think it’s bad. I think College Football officiating, in a lot of cases, outright sucks,” he said. However, Pate reinforced how he’s not merely speaking about the momentary lapses by the officials themselves. He’s on about the overarching issue with how the SEC, for instance, is run differently to the B1G. Instead of a blanket directive for every referee crew in the game, different ones are asked to emphasize different things. Implement different variants of the rules and take different stances. Meaning the result is often a confusing mess. Both on the gridiron and on the TV screens of fans. Kalen DeBoer and Alabama witnessed this first hand last season.
The week 13 tie between Bama and Oklahoma spawned headlines galore. OU beating the Tide in their first matchup as SEC contemporaries post the former’s realignment. The embarrassing 24-3 scoreline. It being a watershed moment for Coach DeBoer’s playoff hopes. All worthy of the front page. But unfortunately, the biggest talking point came by way of a bad refereeing call. In the 4th quarter while already trailing by 3 scores, Bama had a 4th and 3 in OU territory. With 14 minutes on the clock, a touchdown would’ve made things interesting. That’s exactly what happened. However, a penalty flag mitigated what was true freshman Ryan Williams’ best play in Crimson yet.
Jalen Milroe threw a 40-yard bomb into the endzone which found Ryan Williams. But the play was brought back rather bemusingly. The referee cited “illegal touching” on the play, saying Williams was covered up at snap. The penalty was lambasted by the broadcast at the time, as well as by numerous football savants and experts. The offense was seemingly lined up in a legal formation with no discrepancy. Who knows what would’ve happened had this totally legal play stood, with regards to both the game and Kalen DeBoer’s season. This was clearly an officiating error, a lapse of judgement. Yet, Josh Pate has maintained through that incident up until present day that the crux of the issue are the authorities, not the refs themselves.
Kalen DeBoer’s woes continue to be a recurring theme without wholesale changes
Josh Pate isn’t new to his beef with the custodians in charge of the sport he loves, he’s true to it. “The people who run College Football have really screwed up officiating for the officials, but especially for us,” he said during the latest iteration of his show. “The problems in the fact that Big 10 folks are made to care about different things than SEC folks, than Big 12 folks, than ACC folks. You would think to yourself, ‘Wait, College Football is a huge, multibillion dollar enterprise. You’re telling me they haven’t gotten the enforcement mechanisms of the games themselves on the same page?’ Great question. No, they haven’t.” he added.
Back when that incident between Bama and OU went down, he stood 10 toes down on a similar stance. “It’s not even the officials I have a problem with. I got supreme respect for people who officiate this game.” remarked Pate then. “It should be up to the people they answer to. It is Greg Sankey at the SEC league office. It’s Tony Petitti at the Big 10 league office…It may be time for full time officials. It may be time to nationalize officiating, where we have a same standard across the board.” It’s indeed pretty appalling how refs at the top echelon of CFB are working part time. You can’t expect perfection from part-timers, so Pate’s stance is rational.
Pate’s words don’t often fall on deaf ears. So it is telling that over 4 months apart, there’s been no progress on this front. The conference cold war between the SEC and B1G is baked right into this sport. But competing for supremacy is one thing, and competing on the officiating level is another. Implementing a nationalized standard really is requisite if you want to continue increasing the appeal of CFB. Nobody wants a product where you can switch broadcasts and it’s a whole different game being played. Maybe Kalen DeBoer and bluebloods Alabama receiving the short end of the stick instigates something down the line.
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