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SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 27, 2006Rogers ReddingBIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA THE MODERATOR: I'm pleased to introduce the newly appointed the SEC coordinator of officials, Rogers Redding. ROGERS REDDING: Thanks, Charles. Good morning. It's good to be with you this morning. I'm really pleased to be able to meet with you today. I've had an opportunity over the years that I've been officiating in the conference to meet some of you. I'm looking forward to working with you. Let me talk a little bit about this change in leadership in the football officiating program. The commissioner talked about this a little bit yesterday. I want to flesh that out a little bit. Taking the position that Bobby Gaston held for so long is really a humbling experience for me. Bobby hired me as an official, referee in the league, more than a decade ago. Bobby and I have always had a great working relationship. There's a certain risk involved in replacing an icon like Bobby Gaston. The wisdom in the sports world is you don't want to be the guy that replaces John Wooden, you want to be the guy that replaces the guy that replaces John Wooden. I feel like I'm replacing the John Wooden of football officiating. He certainly has been terrific in trying to make this transition as seamless and smooth as possible. The officials are excited about the season beginning. The coaches and players are certainly excited. But the officials are excited. We begin our clinic tonight. We will have the guys do a mile and a half run against the clock in the morning to test their conditioning. On Saturday morning we will give them a rules exam. We will spend the weekend going over the rule changes, a lot of the things associated with football. The passion that football officials have for what we do is really quite remarkable. I hope you appreciate that. Just a little bit about my own background. I spent a long time in the academic world. I was a physics professor at several places for about the last 30, 35 years. During most of that time I was also an academic administrator. I was dean of the college of the arts and sciences at Northern Kentucky University for a few years and have been the provost at two institutions, including most recently at the Colorado Springs campus of the University of Colorado. The bloggers have had a good time with this. There's been several references to, what is the SEC thinking in hiring this physics geek to direct the football officiating program? They've been having some good time with that. Interestingly enough, my football officiating career started about the same time my academic career did. Everybody starts out football officiating the same way, working pee wee and junior high games. I did that back in Texas in the early '70s, which is about the same time as I started my academic career. They've sort of gone along in parallel during that time. I was a referee in the Southwest Conference for six years. When I moved to the southeastern part of the country in the '90s, I was able to switch over to the Southeastern Conference. I love this conference. I'm telling you, this is the best conference in the country. I've gotten a different perspective on that for the last few years from living in Colorado, which is Big 12 country, Mountain West country, and WAC country. They talk about Southern football. When they talk about it, they're talking about the programs that you're writing about and the coaches in the Southeastern Conference, the players in the Southeastern Conference. The opportunity to direct this football officiating program, the opportunity to get back to the SEC, to stay affiliated with the SEC after having refereed in it for 10 years, is something I just couldn't turn down. I'm delighted to be with you. I want to talk about the rule changes. All the buzz is about the coach's challenge, which is in addition to the instant replay. I thought it would be helpful if I spent some time this morning talking about some of the major rule changes. We'll talk a little bit about the coach's challenge. There are very few really major rule changes this year. Some of them, only the people that are interested in the arcana of football will pay attention to some of this. There are two major clock rules that are different this year. The first is that the clock will start when the ball is kicked on a kick-off. Now, for all of the history of college football, up until five or six years ago, the clock didn't start when the ball was kicked, it started when it was legally touched in the field of play. Then several years ago, the rule was changed to allow the clock to start when the ball was kicked, except in the last two minutes of each half. Then a few years ago, three years ago, they went back to the old rule. Now they're back again to the previous rule about starting the clock on the kick, except this time there is no two-minute window in each half. The clock will start when the ball is kicked on the kick-off, period, no matter what the time of the game is. That's one you will notice. You'll notice that the first thing of the season because obviously the game starts with the kick-off. You will see that. That's a change that will affect the timing of the game. It's going to change -- impact how the coaches manage their clock. Clock management is a big deal for coaches. This change will impact the way the coaches manage the clock. The other one that has to do with the clock, is for the first time ever in the history of college football, when the team that was on defense, let's say the receiving team on a punt, when they get the ball, when the ball becomes dead, of course the clock stops, but now the clock is going to start on the ready for play signal by the referee rather than on the snap. Let's take an example. Suppose one team punts, the other team gets the ball, whether they make a fair catch or get tackled in the field of play, carry the ball out of bounds, the clock will stop, the teams -- the offense will come on, the defense will come on, and the referee will whistle ball ready for play. At that time, the game clock will also start. That's a major change in the clock rule. Again, this is going to be a challenge for the coaches and the players in terms of their clock management. There are only two exceptions to this rule. If the play that we're talking about ends a quarter, they change ends of the field, we're not going to start the quarter on the ready for play. The quarter will start on the snap. So that's one exception. The other exception is if there is a team timeout, if either team requests and is granted a timeout at the end of that play, when we come back to play, the clock will start on the snap rather than on the ready for play signal. It doesn't matter what else is going on. You'll notice this at the beginning of the game, the first game. Watch for this. The clock will start on the kick on the kick-off. When the receiving team gets the ball, they do whatever they do, get tackled in the field of play, run out of bounds or whatever, when their offense comes on the field, the referee will wind the clock on the ready for play signal. That's a major change that will have an impact on the game. The other one is the coach's challenge. Last year you remember we instituted instant replay in all the Division I conferences. The Big-10 conference in the 2004 season had done instant replay on an experimental basis. Last year most of the Division I conferences, I think there was one conference, maybe the WAC, one conference didn't use instant replay last year. The Mountain West Conference allowed a coach's challenge, but the other conferences didn't. This year, each head coach will have one challenge per game with regard to instant replay. The way that's going to work is, it will be in conjunction with the head coach calling a timeout. If the head coach has a timeout available to him in either half, he may request a timeout for the purpose of reviewing the previous play. He will get the attention of the nearest official and say, I want a timeout for the purposes of reviewing the previous play. If the challenge is successful, that is to say if the call on the field is overturned, they get their timeout back, but they don't get another challenge. They've used their challenge for the game. Let's say there's two timeouts. One team has used two of their three timeouts in the first half. If the coach wants to use the third timeout for a coach's challenge, he can do that. If the challenge is successful, he gets a timeout back. If he's used all his timeouts in the first half, he'll have to wait for the second half to institute a challenge. One of the things I want you to understand about instant replay, I try to preach this sermon every opportunity I get. The instant replay booth, and I worked as an instant replay official last year, I've been there, done that, we are looking at every day. We are reviewing every single play even though not all plays are allowable to stopping the game for a review, but we're reviewing every play. From the time the ball is dead until the ball is snapped again, we can often review that play two, three, maybe four times. We have the technology, pretty sophisticated now, about getting TV feed from the truck, looking at plays in the replay booth. My hope is that the coaches will not need the challenge because the instant replay officials will be doing their job in terms of stopping the game anyway. But the challenge is available to the coaches. I'm very supportive of this. I think it's another opportunity for the officiating crew to get it right. So those are the major changes. I think with that, Charles, I'll turn it back to you. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Rogers.
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