A day inside the SEC replay center
Collaboration key as officials seek more consistency
BIRMINGHAM, ALA. Replays were conclusive. The video proof was indisputable. It took no time at all to understand what the correct call should have been: Touchdown, Texas A&M. Instead, the side judge blew the play dead, saying Kellen Mond had stepped out of bounds near the 10-yard line. And this was the reason for the palpable frustration inside a room 600 miles away from the stadium:
There was nothing anyone could do about it.
“It’s human error,” ESPN color analyst Brock Huard said on the broadcast. “They’re not robots.”
But inside the Southeastern Conference’s collaborative instant replay center, where the idea is to eliminate human error to the extent possible, that didn’t make anyone feel any better.
“There are two things we try to do,” said Steve Shaw, the SEC’s coordinator of football officials. “Consistency and avoid incorrect outcomes.”
Yet despite all the high-tech equipment and years of expertise gathered in the room, this mistake was uncorrectable. The play was non-reviewable by rule, to use the parlance of replay, because of the difficulty of determining what effect the premature whistle might have had on the players’ effort.
“Unfortunately, this one wasn’t reversible,” Shaw said, and though he wouldn’t say so, disappointment was etched on his face. “You don’t know whether somebody let up — could they have made the play (if not for the whistle)?”
On Saturday, a reporter from USA TODAY Sports observed the SEC’s collaborative replay process. As a precondition for access, the SEC asked that individual conversations during reviews not be reported. But a perch in the back corner of the room proved to be a prime viewing location for a day of college football while providing insight into a complex and still-evolving system — and also its limitations.
During a 12-hour, eight-game span, the league’s three collaborative replay officials monitored hundreds of plays. They reviewed dozens, stopped play 14 times. Working in concert with replay officials on-site at stadiums, they reversed six calls. Although an average time per replay wasn’t immediately available — the SEC’s goal is to reduce the time from 2016’s average of 1:28 per review — Shaw said he was satisfied with the pace.
“Overall, we were pretty crisp in getting in and out,” he said. “It was a good day from a collaborative replay perspective.”
SETTING THE SCENE
Officially, the SEC is in the second season of an experimental process. This season the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 and
Pac-12 are using similar centralized locations. The Big Ten has a different system in which the onfield referee uses a tablet computer to collaborate with a replay official located in the press box. Using the system in 2016, the SEC’s officiating accuracy was improved by 8% because of collaboration, according to Shaw’s calculations (he determined 18 of
226 reviews wouldn’t have resulted in the correct outcome without collaboration).
At Sankey’s request, Shaw consulted with the NFL and now mirrors some of its review technology and processes. The SEC spent $2 million to install DVSport systems and upgrade the technology in its existing video center, as well as at league stadiums.
The replay center now features an 80-inch main screen flanked by 16 42-inch screens. Saturday evening, four SEC games played out at the same time. The feeds, transported over fiber optic lines, are in real time — there’s no TV broadcast delay.
In the front row, technicians monitor games and mark various viewing angles for possible review. The technicians are area high school football officials. Their only role is to identify possible situations and to deliver the replays.
The reviews are the responsibility of the guys in the second row. Tom Ritter, Ben Oldham and Jeff Roberson, the collaborative replay officials, are former college football officials. Two of the three also worked as SEC replay officials at stadiums. (The Sun Belt Conference also uses the facility and the process; sitting to Shaw’s right in the third row, Jeff Hilyer monitored and reviewed calls from that league’s games.)
From the third row, Shaw and Dick Burleson monitor everything. Burleson, retired after a long career as an on-field official, assists Shaw with administrative duties. Neither gets involved in the replay reviews — Shaw is barred from doing so — though they watch and listen intently. Shaw’s primary role for the day is to monitor on-field officiating. He and Burleson keep a running list of calls and situations they’ll evaluate later.
CONSISTENCY IS THE GOAL
“Possible targeting, South
Carolina.”
The call came in the fourth quarter, with Louisiana Tech leading South Carolina 16-14. Targeting was called on the field. Oldham and Roberson gathered at Ritter’s workstation. They huddled over the replays and, in a blow to conspiracy theorists ev- erywhere, came to a quick determination that did not benefit the home team: It wasn’t targeting.
In Baton Rouge, after an LSU interception in the end zone was reversed by the collaborative replay officials — sorry Tigers, it’s still Syracuse’s ball — the TV broadcast panned to shots of angry and unhappy LSU fans.
“The student body disagrees,” someone noted drily.
But there was consensus among the replay officials on each play they reviewed Saturday — and unfortunately, on the big one they didn’t.
In consultation with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who was at the Texas A&M-Arkansas game, Shaw and SEC executive associate commissioner Mark Womack determined an official statement should be released explaining why the error by side judge Chris Conley on Monds’ touchdown wasn’t fixed. It was an unusual step. Chuck Dunlap, the SEC’s director of communications for football, said it was the first full-blown statement — meaning, not simply a rules clarification — issued about a call in several years.
Shaw was calling games on the field in 2005, when replay reviews were first instituted a decade ago. At that time, replay was limited to very “obvious errors.” Now, along with the book of NCAA football rules, he consults a replay review casebook at various times in the day. It has 187 examples of rule applications.
“We left ‘obvious’ behind a long time ago,” he said. “It’s very technical, what’s reviewable and what’s not reviewable.”
As Saturday’s final games were winding down, Shaw called across the room to Cole Cunningham, the SEC’s director of video operation. He’s charged on Saturdays with making sure the technology works — and that apparently includes the thermostat.
“It’s hot in here!” Shaw said. From the second row, Roberson piped up — “It’s been hot down here all day” — and he didn’t mean the physical temperature. Everyone laughed. But when the final whistle blew, this was Shaw’s assessment.
“I think inside the replay center, it was a really good day,” he said. “They had an impact early. We had that first targeting (call) initiated from the booth. There were no incorrect outcomes (from reviews), which is always on my plate. I think we were consistent.”
They’ll reconvene again on Saturday and do it all again — hoping to inch ever closer to achieving consistency and avoiding incorrect outcomes.