Well, well, well, as posted by dimecoverage today, the same officiating crew we had for the RRS earlier this month will be calling the game tomorrow evening.

Now calm down.  I have it under close advisement that the line judge and umpire will "absolutely" not make, er miss, one illegal man downfield violation on Saturday.

Dr. Saturday has a great analysis of the Tech underneath passing strategy and brings to mind what we saw in the OU game.  While his discussion focuses on the Tech passing attack, it raises a question that I have been chewing on for 3 weeks.

How is it that the officiating crew in the OU game missed the illegal downfield man calls?

It appears that this also may have occurred in the Tech-Kansas game, too.

Scroll about ¾ through the video. Tech led 42-14 with 5:12 remaining in the 3rd quarter, 3rd and goal from the Kansas 16 yard line. As Leach is in "pile on the hapless Hawk’s homecoming" mode, Crabtree catches a middle screen TD pass right at the LOS while 5 lineman are 5 yards downfield in kick-off return block mode.

The line judge, who is located at bottom of the screen and adjacent to the down marker, is responsible for forward pass interpretation and, as such, assists the umpire with determining if any men are illegally downfield (ie. non-receivers). The umpire (behind the defensive LOS about 8 yards) is ultimately responsible for making the call on illegal men downfield. How can the umpire determine this when the ball is caught +/- ½ yard LOS if the line judge is not on his A game not to mention that the umpire is caught somewhat unawares when Crabtree pinballs off him. Note that on this play, the line judge "floats" ½ to 1 yard behind the LOS. In effect, his perspective of the LOS moves and, as such, becomes ineffective in assisting the umpire on the play.

Now watch the OU middle screen to Manuel Johnson that ended in one of his three TD’s.

Notice that Johnson is beyond the LOS by at least a yard. What do you think the line judge, who is stradling the LOS at bottom of screen, is looking at to determine the LOS?  Is he using the original 1st down yard marker? If so, then what part of the marker is he using as an end line? The bullseye maybe? If that is the case his perspective of the LOS changes as the the marker is not being held perpendicular to the LOS (notice the angle of the yard marker). Did this impact the line judge’s "perception" of the actual LOS and therefore create an artificial LOS?  Also, the umpire pulls back and out of the video as he is moving downfield with the blockers.  Is he then out of position to make an illegal man downfield call?

I think this raises a question or three:

1. Did UT file a complaint with the Big XII office regarding the blatantly obvious illegal man downfield violations during the OU game (of which one of the three I counted went for a TD)?
2. Has the Big XII office reviewed these plays independently with officiating crews to discuss the proper officiating procedures to employ?
3. What are these OC’s thinking when drawing up these plays? Aren’t these near LOS pass plays risky given the implication of drawing a penalty? Or, are they very clever because they inherently recognize the limitations of the officiating?

If there are any officials out there who can explain this phenomina, inquiring minds want to know.