Texas fans throwing trash on the field to overturn a bad and crucial PI call

I’d like to talk about this, and everyone’s reaction to it, a bit further.

I absolutely applaud the actions of the Texas student section, who delayed the game about 10 minutes by throwing every bottle they had onto the field after an absolutely TERRIBLE DPI call wiped out an interception that set Texas up at the Georgia 9 yard line.

After the lengthy delay, the officials got together and correctly made the decision to pick up the flag.

I have long been a proponent of being able to hold officials accountable to do their job correctly. When you or I doesn’t do our job at work, we get fired, but when an official can’t do their job, their employer makes excuses. It’s an absolute problem that leads to officials being able to do whatever they want when they get out on the field. A lot of these officials are also protected by unions, which that’s a whole other thing that I won’t get into with this post, but it still protects these officials from any semblance of accountability.

As Lions fans, we absolutely know how bad officiating changes the outcomes of games. We also know how officials face no consequences for making bad calls or simply failing to do the general procedure of their job (Brad Allen last year). It’s an epidemic at both major levels of the sport, and it has to stop.

I applaud the precedent that was set by the Texas student section, and let me tell you why. For anyone that tries to claim that the players were “in danger” when bottles got thrown on the field…let me show you this.

Yet somehow a tiny ass bottle getting thrown onto the field and likely hitting you in the helmet or the pads you’re wearing…THAT’S where the danger comes in??

You can get clocked by a safety coming across the middle or get pancaked by a 330 lb offensive lineman and be totally fine, but a bottle puts you in danger?

For anyone that tries to say that the officials can’t pick up a non-reviewable flag…yes they can. The Lions lost a ■■■■■■■ playoff game because of it when they picked up…guess what…a DPI flag in the Cowboys game in 2014. It happens all the time.

Any criticism of how the officials handled the situation should be as follows. Yes, they only picked up the flag after a lengthy delay and after they got bullied by the fans into doing their actual job (which I support). The flag was rightly picked up, and to set precedent, Texas should’ve been awarded a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct foul assessed on the home crowd…which has been seen in football before. But, I applaud the student section for stepping in and attempting to reintroduce “accountability” into the world of officiating.

And for anyone that has no idea what I’m talking about:

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I think this sets a terrible precedent. Where does it end? Officials are human and humans are fallible. I don’t think the vast majority of officials are going out there with the intent to make bad calls. It’s part of the game. Sometimes you’re on the wrong end of the stick. It sucks. But to your point that they don’t get fired, that is false. NFL officials are on year to year contracts. They are all evaluated annually, and perhaps anally. Yes, it’s rare for one to be let go for a specific reason, but these guys / gals are usually the best of the best who have been doing this for decades. Instant replay has significantly cut down on the errors. Perhaps challenge flags for pass interference should be allowed? But I don’t think throwing trash into the field when your team is being trounced is ever an appropriate reaction. Would they have done that if their team was up by 20? No. So are they pissed at the officials or pissed at their team?

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With the officials making the correct calls on the field…AKA…doing the job they get paid to do.

Agreed, but when humans are paid to do a job, they get held accountable to do that job.

Of course some questionable calls can get made, but what happened yesterday wasn’t even remotely questionable. It was just bad. I have no idea how anyone can watch that clip and determine that DPI is the correct call in that situation.

Trash shouldn’t get thrown on the field for a coin-flip type mistake. If we start to see that happen, then I’ll condemn it for everyone to see. I’m very against the ejection penalty of targeting for the same reason, because it all just happens so fast. Officiating shouldn’t be biased in favor of the home team…it should just be correct to the rules of the game. I support the fans (who pay the refs salary through TV money and ticket sales) holding them accountable to just do their job.

I have never once seen an instance of an NFL or CFB official getting fired because of their performance.

Please keep in mind that I am younger, so if it happened before I started paying attention to it, then I wouldn’t know about that.

The only official period that I’ve ever seen get fired was Angel Hernandez in the MLB, who was HEAVILY protected by his union, and who once filed a discrimination lawsuit against the MLB for not allowing him to officiate the world series…which the MLB won by stating he was just really bad at his job.

They tried that already in the NFL and it failed spectacularly, but I see no issue with having a sky judge who’s watching the replays as they happen to assist with penalties like that. Having a sky judge is a move that’s been talked about for a while now, and I’d like to see it made real.

If they were up 20, there is a lot less risk of the call directly influencing the outcome of the game. That’s what was so bad about the PI call, and about really bad calls in general.

The fans reacted how they did because they saw how that bad call was going to directly impact the outcome of the game.

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I’m not going to respond to your entire post because it would just be too exhausting. I’ll just agree that we are on the opposite side of the fence on this one. But as to your statement above, here is one instance.

Hugo Cruz

In 2018, down judge Hugo Cruz was fired midseason after missing a false start in a game between the Browns and the Los Angeles Chargers“

But every year officials are not brought back due to performance issues. I’ll leave you with this…

“The NFL experienced a high turnover of officials in the 2023 offseason, with 12 officials departing, the most since 2013. This was only the second time in NFL history that there were double-digit departures in consecutive seasons”

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Refs are consistently pretty terrible…heck they aren’t even full time employees in the nfl. Throwing stuff on the field isn’t the answer though. Empty plastic bottles is one thing but that could lead to a lot other things…next thing you know Santa is getting pelted with Snowballs… Cough Philly… Cough.

How about every one gets 1 pretzel pregame… You can eat it or throw…but no second pretzels allowed :wink:

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How about the safety of the officials? or maybe some of the people on the sidelines, like team assistants? Last time I looked they didn’t have helmets or shoulder pads.

I agree with @Lionpile , this sets a bad precedent if you allow this, period.

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Best idea ever.

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Literally just last week, Will Levis took out a ball boy’s ACL on the sideline, got right back up, and kept playing.

While I absolutely agree that people should be able to stand out of the field of play and be assured of their safety, sometimes stuff happens, like the Levis incident last week.

I also don’t recall seeing anyone get hurt from a bottle being thrown yesterday, or hearing a mention of someone getting hurt on the broadcast. The fans aren’t and shouldn’t be aiming to get anyone hurt by protesting egregious calls like that.

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ROTFLMAO…are you serious? Now the fans can aim they bottles they are throwing as to not hit anyone?
Just give it up
This is the same type of mentality that let protestors take over blocks in Seattle and ruin small business’s in the process. “Let me have a voice”, yea sure.

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Letting fans throw trash on the field, is trash

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@socko gets it…

chris farley Tommy Callahan GIF

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And next thing you know…
image

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Everyone of the fans throwing shit on the field should have a 5 year ban from attending any sporting event in the stadium.
Total BS!

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Motivate Matt Foley GIF

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I can’t accept changing a call like that. Are they going to do that for every game now? And how did they make the change? They can’t review it? I know it’s the right call but the process to getting it right doesn’t seem like it was followed.

Throwing shit on the field is stupid. No other explanations on that.

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That’s not even close to the same thing, and you know that.

Good luck tracking everyone down to enforce that.

It’s important to point out that this wouldn’t even be a conversation if the protesting didn’t work.