Officiating can ruffle feathers of eagle-eyed fans

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

This is just for fun. Let me say again, this is intended for amusement only. Back in 1997, I wrote a column suggesting - in jest of course - that Steve Spurrier had perhaps made a compact with the Devil to ensure the rematch with us in the national championship game.

Many were entertained, but some were not. It was hard to tell which group was more offended: the Spurrier supporters or the Satan worshippers.

Recently, a good Seminole Booster in Jacksonville made a bet with a Gator friend and then called me for confirmation that Spurrier had never beaten Florida State in Tallahassee as either a player or a coach.

As a head coach, Spurrier never beat the Seminoles in Tallahassee. As a player, he went up against FSU twice. He was on the team, but not the starter, in 1964 when the Gators lost in Tallahassee. In 1966, Spurrier quarterbacked his team in Tallahassee, and the NCAA record book says the final score was 26-22 Gators.

The Lane Fenner "Non-Catch"

But of course, you know the rest of the story. There is a cryptic mark next to the score in the Seminole Media Guide with no additional explanation. No true Seminole needs to be told about the Lane Fenner catch. After becoming university president in 2003 T.K. Wetherell ordered three very large, framed prints of the famous pictures to be mounted in and around the FSU President's Box. Wetherell himself was on the field when tight end Lane Fenner caught the touchdown pass that won the game for Florida State. An SEC official trailing far behind the play waved it off as incomplete. News photographs confirmed that the catch and the touchdown were good.

I told our Jacksonville booster to tell his friend that the bet can't be settled today because the issue is still in dispute. Call it, "play under review." That play has been under review for 45 years.

But this isn't about Steve Spurrier; this is about football-game officiating.

The Southeastern Conference suspended one of its officiating crews last fall after a blown call that allowed the University of Florida to defeat the University of Arkansas in a tight game. This is not to say that UF would not have won anyway, but the call came at a critical point in the final minutes. The SEC front office was quick to issue a news release declaring that there was no sinister conspiracy. But SEC fan message boards were flooded with bitter accusations that the league would not allow anything to short-circuit UF's or the University of Alabama's marches to undefeated seasons.

A couple of points should be made here:

First, rumors of corruption in SEC officiating have been circulating for, well, forever. But if UF did get the benefit of that rumored corruption in one game last fall, I have witnessed other games over the years - especially in the era before UF became a national power - in which the Gators were victims of calls outrageous enough to stagger belief in an ordered universe.

Second, back in the day, we all witnessed our Seminoles stung by the arrogance of SEC officials who saw it as their duty to protect the virtue of their league against unwashed, outlaw, non-conference programs such as Florida State. The infamous Lane Fenner call in 1966 wasn't even the most blatant. Against Auburn in Tallahassee in 1975, consecutive phantom holding calls allowed Auburn coach Shug Jordan to escape with a win in his farewell season. The officials did not escape so easily; they were literally chased off the field by enraged Seminole fans.

Joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1991 was an eye-opener for the Seminoles, just as the Seminoles were a shock to the sensibilities of the ACC. Seminole fans were astonished at the number of officials' calls that seemed to go against our team without a corresponding number of flags against our opponents. The unspoken attitude seemed to be, "If you think you're going to come into our house and abuse our friends, we're going to make you pay a heavy price."

The first five years we were in the ACC, our coaches routinely sent complaints about bad calls, along with supporting video, to the conference offices, and even from time to time requested that certain officials not be assigned to Florida State University games. According to reports, those requests were never honored, and most of the time we never even received the courtesy of a response. Some of that has abated since 2001, but even today there are veteran Seminole fans who believe they can tell you if Florida State is going to get a fair shake just by looking at the names of the officials assigned to our game.

And, as it turns out, the Atlantic Coast Conference will provide the officials for our game against UF.

One year ago, in October, 2009, the SEC fined Urban Meyer $30,000 for voicing his unhappiness about an official's call. It would be swell if we can win this November in Tallahassee. And if their coach gets upset with an ACC official this time and says something unpleasant, I'm confident that we can raise the money to cover his fine.