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College Replay Broken

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As noted in the morning coffee, Mack Brown held an interesting, if belated, press conference on Tuesday. Among the topics that came up in the transcript was whether Mack considered challenging the ruling on the field after Texas' first two unsuccessful goal-to-go plays on the opening drive:

Well, we did because we thought we were in the end zone on both of the previous plays. Then again, if you go back, I think there have been 125 challenges and 24 of them had been overruled. We thought it was so early in the ballgame that surely a guy standing right there could see the line. So, I don't know.

When you consider that only one out of six coaches' challenges is resulting in an overturned play, the smart move is probably saving the timeout, especially in situations like the one Brown faced. The low number of overturned calls across the country, though, is surprising. From the October 20th USA Today article:

A survey of the six major conferences reveals 71 calls have been challenged with only 12 overturned, about one in six. Coaches from the Pacific-10 have had the best degree of success, but have used it just four times, with two changed. Big 12 coaches are 0-for-18. Others: Big East, 2-for-13; ACC, 3-for-13; Southeastern, 2-for-14; Big Ten, 3-for-9.

<parenthetical>This article did, I'd like to note, inspire one of the single stupidest comments of the entire year, from blogger College Football Resource, who wrote, and I quote, "This says a lot about the coaching in these leagues, in some ways."

And what would that be, CFR? That Big 12 coaches are stupid? More aggressive? Blind? Greedy? Bad with TiVo?

Think before you speak, people.</parenthetical>

I only bring up Mack Brown's thoughts on this because the college football replay system isn't working. It's not so much that the replay systems can't work, it's that the process by which plays get reviewed is a loony one. BON joins SMQ in calling for a replay system modeled after the one currently in place in the NFL: coaches are allowed a limited number of challenges; under two minutes in the half and only the booth may instigate review.

--PB--