Officiating: IU Holding/False Starts/Targeting
I don't blame officiating for any result, and don't want to be that guy.I believe bad officiating is something both sides have to deal with. However since we won I feel this can be more objective. There are thee points I wanted to discuss and gauge reaction.
1) IU Offensive line holding. Indiana got called for holding one time in this game. (in the first half) I know their O line is very good and we got mauled up front. But in the 4Q and OT literally every Howard run to the outside, I watched the line, multiple cases where they were just grabbing our defenders, tackling, no calls. They set the edge on every outside run by grabbing our edge defender and not letting him outside. I saw coaches screaming for holding, and the broadcast mentioned it once. I guess we didn't get called for it either, officials just letting them play. Maybe im biased, have to review the game again, but I thought it was pretty blatant.
2) I've seen this mentioned on the board last night and today, IU O-line looked to be starting early almost every snap. They got called for multiple false starts, but literally almost every play they had some type of movement. In both cases the holding and false starts, I guess if you can get away with it, than why not.
3) The ejection rule for targeting needs to be eliminated immediatley, if not the entire rule itself. It's the most subjective, poorly called rule in football I've ever seen. The difference of impact between the Bolden targeting ejection vs MSU, and the hit Rudock took yesterday is expontential. If they want it to be a personal foul penalty I guess that's fine, but the impact of ejecting a player on a call that is accurate MAYBE half the time is absurd.
November 15th, 2015 at 3:16 PM ^
November 15th, 2015 at 4:01 PM ^
I agree with a point both of you are making. The game has "evolved" and the officiating has "evolved" to favor the offense again and again. The changes in officiating are a huge reason game scores are 55-52 so often these days, when they would have been impossible years ago. So much blocking today would have been considered holding back in the day. Defenders are barely allowed to tackle without drawing a flag. Receivers lay out over the middle today and if they are hit, it's a potential penalty because the receiver was "defenseless". Back in the day, most receivers wouldn't dare even try because they would get drilled.
We had a discussion in the car this morning about a similar phenomenon with cars. When I was a kid in Detroit, it was pretty well understood by the kids that if we were dumb enough to get hit by a car, then we were idiots and we got what we deserved. So we always made sure to stay out of any traffic in the neighborhood. Now, kids walk down the middle of my street and don't move when a car comes. They cross a street when they feel like it and expect an oncoming car to stop--which the oncoming car does, because if the car hits the kid, the driver will be at fault (at least here in Savannah). The point being, we now have rules to protect the "defenseless receiver" or any offensive player when it used to be that the offensive player just shouldn't put himself in that position in the first place. So the offense is free to do things they couldn't do before.
Holding has become so rare and so arbitrary that it can make the game very frustrating for me to watch. But the powers that be want more offense because people like lots of scoring and they want minimal penalties because people don't like lots of penalties. But if the refs decide to call holding on one team more than the other, because they're just not quite as good at it as the other team, that team will have a very hard time winning any game. My father-in-law likes to say he can tell who will win any NFL game by seeing which team is getting holding calls early on. He may be overstating things a bit, but he has a point. It frustrates the heck out of me, but it's the way it is now.
November 15th, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^
What the heck? I said "both of you" because there was a discussion here with Sten and someone else going back and forth. Now all the other person's posts are gone.
Am I crazy or did something strange happen here?
November 16th, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^
The correct response to the officials not calling holding is... having your offensive line hold just as much.
You play the game how it is being officiated.
November 15th, 2015 at 1:04 PM ^
the I don't want to blame officiating opening sentence followed by 3 paragraphs of blaming the officials posts
November 15th, 2015 at 1:52 PM ^
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November 15th, 2015 at 1:52 PM ^
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November 15th, 2015 at 1:07 PM ^
They weren't great, but, I wasn't ever truly outraged at something in the game. Yeah, the lack of holding calls was annoying as fuck, but Michigan definitely benefitted from some questionable penalties against IU as well.
But yeah, the holding man. What does it take to call it? There was one play where Brock the color guy said "Harbaugh's yelling for holding but in my opinion there wasn't much there", and once again I rolled my eyes. Because it was a play with a CLEAR hold on an edge defender that helped the RB get to the edge. No call. I guess we just have to accept that's the way it is. As long as they're consistent - and at least they were fairly consistent with their standard yesterday. That's all I ask.
On a tangential note, it's especially annoying that holding is never called in college because in the NFL the standard is completely different. Holding is called frequently, and often on plays that aren't even close to holding. Now, I don't want that in college. But...when one team is gaining huge chunks of yards with assisstance by holding, it's not too much to ask for a flag or two once in awhile.
November 15th, 2015 at 1:49 PM ^
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November 15th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
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November 15th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
November 15th, 2015 at 2:03 PM ^
I don't think Michigan got jobbed anymore than Indiana got jobbed. In the end, the players and fans and sport are all just worse off when officials can't do their jobs.
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November 15th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
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November 15th, 2015 at 2:48 PM ^
November 15th, 2015 at 3:08 PM ^
November 15th, 2015 at 10:28 PM ^
November 15th, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^
I'd like to see a really long look made at the IU OL, because like the OP, it really seemed to me like they were jumping the snaps in unison almost every single time.
November 15th, 2015 at 3:28 PM ^
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November 15th, 2015 at 4:47 PM ^
is so comically inept that the only time I'm shocked anymore is when they make a CORRECT call.
November 15th, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^
I have not felt that there was anywhere as much blatant holding against us in most of the games so far this year. But yesterday I just kept seeing it over and over. I thoujght maybe I was over reacting to the close game. Nope. There was blatant holding on almost every running play. In regular speed, the D line got push on their O line most of the time and then "some how" they could not get off the blocks to tackle the ball carrier. In the slo mo I could see the O line them grabbing and tackling them on most of these plays. I am not sure how tight the refs are supposed to call these types of plays. If what Indiana did was ok, then we are not holding enough.
November 15th, 2015 at 5:30 PM ^