SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYS

July 27, 2005

Bobby Gaston

BOBBY GASTON: Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Commissioner. I thought you would be interested to know most everybody is interested in instant replay. We have three or four rules changes. I thought you need to let me bring it to your attention as to what's going to happen out there. One thing is we now have the intentional grounding pocket. Since all of you wrote, and all the announcements and everybody said, he is outside the tackle. Last year, it was five yards from the ball which was really outside the tight end, but everybody referred to it as being outside the tackles. So the rule changed and now the pocket is the normal tackle position, and so that would be easier to establish with us because you're in blocking restrictions on backs if they're outside the normal tackle position. So we will be able to have also a look and see when the passer, when he releases the ball, so that's the change of one of note. There is a special emphasis on this year that was offered by Ron Corisn, the trainer over at the University of Georgia on spearing. It's felt like this is growing on us and that we're allowing a lot of players to use the top of their helmets to punish other players and injure other players. We had a couple of unfortunate instances where people were knocked unconscious and what have you with a defense back going for a helpless receiver who is stretched to catch a pass and he used his head. So the rule said he must intentionally use his helmet to spear, and we felt like it's hard to find an official to realize whether or not the players intentionally used it or whether he was just making a hit. It happens. So anyhow they took the word "intentional" out of the rule. So that will be a rule and a point of emphasis, not only in our conference, but nationally. Ron has done a great job of going around the country and presenting a lot of data to the various conferences showing that we were not doing a good job in that area. I think the statistics were a little bit wrong, because, a lot of times it was probably recording a late hit rather than spearing, so it came in. But in any event, that will be a point of emphasis this year and we've told our referees, for instance, any time the defensive player is charging the passer, and if you see him lower that head, he will suspect strongly towards spearing, using his helmet for a foul. Another trick they use is they come in and put their head right on the chest bone of the passer and then rip up with the top of the head, and it is very dangerous, very punishing and we had some injuries to occur. From that point a lot of coaches are in total agreement, that is a rule that needed to changed.. That's a change this year. Another thing I have been pushing for, for several years, is blocking below the waist. I feel like that we see a lot of people in this world walking around with bad knees because they get blind sided and getting clipped. So what used to be referred as the legal clipping zone, which is an area three yards on each side of the ball longitudinally, five yards horizontal, a six-by-ten area used to be called a legal clipping zone, and a player could go in there and clip an opponent and do it legally. I have been pushing, as I say, and finally got a chance to get before the rules committee and talk in this direction, and we have now had it added to the rule, that if the blow comes from at the knee or below from the rear, that's a foul even though it's in what is now called the rectangular zone. It will be legal for him to block above the waist in the back and down on the hamstring, but he cannot block at the knee or below from the rear. It's a tough foul to see and usually occurs when the defensive players has made his initial charge and as he sees the play going away from him, he turns to follow it and he is suspect and the offensive player who is trailing is actually cutting him at the knee. So we're going to work hard on changing some of our mechanics in order to bring the offside, the official down the line of scrimmage, to pick up this foul. And you will, I will suspect, with some of this called, and you will think, well, that was the clipping zone, but there is no longer a clipping zone. The foul which became famous in the LSU/University of Auburn game last year has been changed. The rule simply read last year, that if you leaped, if you came from more than yard off the line of scrimmage and leaped, came down on an opponent, it was a foul. Well, the rule was put in for safety purposes, so why define it simply as "opponent"? So we got it changed. Now if he comes from more than one yard behind the line of scrimmage, runs forward and leaps and comes down on any player, then he is deemed to have fouled. I think it will discourage leaping in general. The guy gets a running start and thrusts himself up and then he just comes down. It's dangerous to him and the reason the rule was originally put in was because of the player in the Mountain West Conference who launched and was hit at the feet by the son who charged out on him and summersaulted him and fell down and broke his neck. That was about three years ago and they decided to get that out of the rule book, and so leaping will become very light this year. I don't think we will see anybody running and launching. It's not illegal to leap straight up and come down, and I think that's what we will see. I have been going around various coaching staffs and we're going to have a clinic this weekend, on Friday, where we bring the coaches in and that's one thing we'll concentrating on is teaching them exactly what they can and can't do so we can get rid of this foul. We have also instituted in the book a listing of unsportsman-like acts. As you know, SEC has always been relatively strict on unsportsman-like conduct. And some of the conferences said, well, they didn't think that was demeaning to the game and let it go. I wrote down a list and submitted to the rules committee 21 acts, and 13 of them have been adopted, such as slashing the throat and using the guns, running out and "I can't hear you," some of what the guys did in the NFL, make a phone call to his buddy and simulate making a call. All those things are demeaning to the game, and, you know, it's a game we're trying to uphold and make a special point; football is a game that's sacred. If we're not careful and let it too much out of hand, it will go away. When I arrived at Birmingham and looked at the field surrounding us, very seldom do I see kids out there playing football. I see a lot of kicking soccer balls. So if we don't do our job in keeping the game clean and competitive, then we stand a chance of maybe losing football and having it go downhill. So that's the reason that's put in now, it's defined, so I think you'll see more universal called conferences since the referee's have a list of acts to call. Most important, as you are well aware, they will have instant replay to occur by the Division I-A conferences. And as you remember last year, we had a small experiment that we had officials look up to the press box. We held up a little deal that said "good call" or "bad call." But the commissioner sprung for a little more money this year and we have a machine now where we can actually see the feed from the broadcasters and we'll determine what rules, what things we need to do. The objective of instant replay is to allow the specific types of officiating mistakes to be immediately reviewed and corrected. And the standard is that there must be indisputable evidence, video evidence, to overturn a call that's on the field. Now, we have given you in your handout a number of the plays which can and can't be reviewed. But in general, let's talk about that thing because we need to educate the fans as well as the media as to what we are going to review and what we're not going to review. And that means that we are not going to review any fouls. We're primarily going to review plays where, whether it's a catch or not a catch on passing plays, and whether or not on the scoring play the runner broke the plain of the goal line or was out of bounds, short of it, whether a receiver was in bounds, out of bounds at the end line, things of that nature. We're going to rule about touching of the pass. We can do that. We can review a play on fourth down and tries as to whether or not a fumbling player is the player that recovered the fumble, that's a requirement on fourth down and tries, that's a reviewable thing. Obviously, the big deal is coming from pass completions or incompletions or fumbles or non-fumbles, whether the runner was down before the fumble or whether or not it was a fumble before he actually hit the ground with some part of his body other than his hand or foot. What you will see in officiating will be a slight change a little bit. I think the officials will be a little hesitant, when the ball is loose, unless they are 100 percent sure that he was down, I think you will probably see them go fumble since it can be reviewed and overturned, then I think that that's what's going to happen. The same thing is true with the passer, whether or not it's a legal forward pass or whether he fumbles the ball. If the referee steps up and says it's incomplete pass because the arm was going forward, there is nothing we can review because we killed the ball and subsequent act, it is not reviewable. We can't do anything with it. But if he rules it as a fumble and then we determine, upon review, that his arm was actually going forward, then we can go back and rule it as an incomplete pass. The referees here again will be slightly hesitant on that particular play, but I don't want them to give up officiating. I want them to continue officiating because we want as few stoppages as we can get. So we're going to encourage them to see it, know it, and throw it. That's the action by which we have lived. And if you see the action, you know what the action is, then go ahead and make your call. I think that will hold true. I think teams will try to take advantage of us a little bit, if it's a close play on a touch down, maybe a catch right at the corner. They'll try to hurry up and get that extra point in if they ruled it a touch down. Well, to remind you, in the Southeastern Conference following every play, the first play, we have a 12 to 14 second dead period before the next ready for play. And since that's a very critical play in a game, impact the play, we will encourage our officials to slow down, probably as much as a second or two. We're walking on uncharted waters, so subsequently we don't know totally what to expect although we did practice this equipment at the Kentucky Spring game and we found amazingly so that we will able to review far more players and plays than we thought we could. We found that probably 7/8th of the plays, we had an opportunity to look at it twice in that 12 to 14 second dead period and make a choice as to whether or not we wanted to stop the game. So I visualize that we will probably review at least 90 of the approximately 170 plays that are played during a game and take a look. So we do not have in the NCAA a coaching challenge. But as I have told the coaches as I go around, they can encourage us by taking a time out and turning and staring at the replay booth, and that might prompt us a little bit into action to take it a little bit farther. If they have a strong feeling and willing to waste a time out, because right or wrong, they don't get the time out back, but that's a chance, that they want to let us know that they're dissatisfied with how the ruling went if we haven't stopped it. The mechanics of it works simply like this. We have three people in the replay booth. We have a technician furnished by the schools, we have a communicator who sits to his right, and we have a replay official. Those are the three people that are in the booth. We have direct feeds from the production truck of the television source we're using and the feed will come directly to the technician who has a monitor in front of him, and he, in turn, announces to the communicator that he is ready to feed him a play. In front of the communicator, we have a 9 square television set. It's very similar to Hollywood Squares if you think about that. So we are capable of putting 9 different views depending on the number of cameras we have into that nine paneled screen. And the replay official who is sitting on the right of the communicator, he has a 17 inch monitor and he is watching the game as well and glancing down at the monitor if necessary. But at the end of the play, he can call for whatever the communicator may have and it is a touch screen, meaning that the communicator touches the panel and that immediately sends that action to the replay official. What will happen is there is, let's say we have got a kick-off and we got a return, and as the review official is looking at it, he think he may have stepped out of bounds about the 40 yard line, but he continues to run on for a touch down. When he sees him at the 40 yard line, he has a button in front of him that he touches. Now, the feed he is getting is really actually two seconds slow. What this simply means is that at the end of the play, when he hits his button, it goes back. Since it's two seconds slow and he thought he stepped out on the 40, the runner will actually be at the 30. Then so he can bring in it and got a remote that he can go forward and backwards with. And he says I am still not sure whether he did or didn't, do we have anything down the side line. Then, if the communicator said, we have got one straight down the side line, then we see it, he touches that panel and immediately it goes to the replay official and he singly, men and lady's, will make the decision as to what the review is and if there is to be an over turn. And remember, I started out by saying there must be indisputable video evidence in order to make an overturn. Only with that can we do it. Now, how does it work from there? We have got five people on the field with pagers on them, similar to what you get at Outback when we go. We have told them to turn those n toward the body. When it vibrates, they'll be alerted to it, but don't put it in your crotch. So we want to keep them alert. And when he did this at Kentucky, you actually see the official jump just a little bit when he sets off the buzzer. But that means now that the review official has made the determination that he wants to review the previous play. And so at that time, we have another person on the sidelines standing next to our operator with a headset and the referee will immediately, upon his getting the page, will immediately stop the action and announce that we're reviewing the last play, at which time he will go to this guy on the side line, put on the head set and this cord will stretch out onto the field. Then he will be in communication with review official himself. We decided to do this rather than having a phone at the sidelines like most people do because I was told by the NFL people that when you put a phone right there on the stands itself, that you have got people hanging over the stands and much of a distraction, as well as coaches hollering at you. You are better off if you can get him free and clear of any action in order to make his determinations. So he will make it and, as I say, if he comes up with indisputable video evidence to make the over turn, then he can do so. Now, the clock adjustments. The clock situation that happened in the Tennessee-Florida game is non-reviewable. But if we have a play that we can review, the play we talked about where the guy returned it for a touch down and determined later that he stepped out on the 40 yard line, then, when we replay the original feed, the clock will be embedded on the screen so we can tell exactly what the clock was reading when he stepped out of bounds on the 40 yard line, and consequently the time that was used up in his running for the touch down is not allowed. We can add back to the clock. So that's a clock adjustment. And reverse of that, if a guy picks up a fumble and runs with it, but he determined the play was down before the fumble, here again, we can go back and add time back to the clock. So it's not really a complicated thing, but it has to happen in a hurry and has to be total teamwork within the replay booth. Our replay booths have opaque sides. You cannot see in or out of them, but it is open strictly to the field. It's locked with security, and consequently, nobody can go in and disrupt this operation as it goes on. We feel like we will be prepared. We feel like that tomorrow I am bringing everybody in Birmingham and the people that are here that you want to see this equipment in the room. You will see how it works, then we will operate off of film tomorrow and as though a game is going on. Subsequent to this, on August 13 and August the 20, we're going to do scrimmages at two of our schools, and we will instigate the television cameras into the booth and work out the camera. So we will have a crew on eastern school and have crew in a western school so they can get practice in the use of this equipment. And that's about as much as we can do to get prepared. And if you studied the reviewable plays, and you have any questions, I will be glad to try to comment if I can. As I say we, worked hard as Brad Davis in our office has been basically responsible for the equipment and I have been responsible for selecting and training of the people who will actually make the reviews, and I feel very comfortable with the people we have and I feel like that we will do a good job, but it's not, going to work perfectly because there is going to be a lot of disagreement as to what can and cannot be reviewed, but we are simply operating off of a NCAA list of reviewable and non-reviewable list. N C. The supervisors met in Ashville several weeks back and went over their list and offered some additions to it and a couple were added, but most of them they just stayed with the list they have which is really very similar to what the NFL has, and identical what the Big 10 used last year in their experiment. The Big 10 found it worked very well. They found that there was a calm that came over the fans that realized that a particular play was going to be reviewed. Coaches were calling in to the referees, and was a result, even the media concurred that it worked very well and we're having one of their Big 8 officials who did games. I addressed all our people last year. Delay fears and what's going on out there. Hopefully they can do a good job. That's about all I have to say about it. If there are any questions from the audience, I will be glad to answer them. Yes, sir.

BOBBY GASTON: They are former officials. And we have eight review officials and ten communicators. We're using our communicators pretty much on a local basis so they'll work probably one or two schools, and but our replay officials will rotate around among the schools and so it will be a circulation so we have somebody in and say he was at that particular school.

BOBBY GASTON: Well, instant replay deal has tried to keep the replay people out of actually officiating the game. They're only there to correct the mistake that they made. If we had to watch the clock every play and determine whether they started it properly or improperly, that's a real tedious thing I can assure you. It was felt like we don't want to get, as I say, replay team into officiating, but rather to correct the errors made and correcting clock adjustments would be very difficult because there are so many things. I think that clock is affected every play and the consensus of the rules committee was they want to keep us out of that, that's a NCAA decision. We did submit that. Yes, sir.

BOBBY GASTON: We will still have a jumbotron that will allow one replay. One thing about jumbotron is we're only allowed to use the feed from the television truck. If the jumbotron has another angle and puts it up there, we don't get that so we can only be as good as the information we are getting from the production truck. And so we have a rule in the NCAA that the jumbotron can show one replay and show it one time. But we can't be looking off at the jumbotron when we have got this other stuff. Hopefully, we will get enough feed to be able to correct that. Yes, sir.

BOBBY GASTON: Well, hopefully, the Big 10 can only give this statistic. They have had 55 games with instant replay last year. They had 43 reviews and 21 overturns. That to me seems like a little bit high percentage. 21, that means half of their reviews they overturned. We will hopefully do better than that. In fact, the greatest thing that could happen to me is that he spent all of his money for nothing, because every call we make is proper. But I am not naive enough to know that that won't necessarily be the case. Yes, sir.

BOBBY GASTON: No. They'll still feed us the replays even whether its reviewable or non-reviewable. We have to make the determination from the list that you have been furnished, that was given to us by the NCAA, as to whether it's reviewable. But you look at it anyhow. That is determined by the number of cameras that the particular broadcast team has.

BOBBY GASTON: The press row is not being affected by what we get. The length of the game you asked about. We anticipate that should not be increased by more than a minute and a half. We think we have the same record as the Big 10. We are in uncharted waters, but if we can narrow it down to one review, we ought to be able to make that in less than two minutes. So, hopefully, we're not going to lengthen it more than a minute and a half to two minutes. Yes, sir.

BOBBY GASTON: We notified on July the 1st, all of our non-conference opponents, and, to my knowledge, every school has accepted instant replay, so it appears that at least every game will be reviewed. Yes, sir?

BOBBY GASTON: What is the cost?

BOBBY GASTON: I don't think we have got that. It's really hard to say. See, the games that are not televised by Nationals, JP, CBS, ESPN and Fox, those games we have pay-for-view deals or we have got to bring in the independent deal. And at this stage of the game, we don't know exactly which are and are not, so it's pretty hard to pinpoint a cost.

BOBBY GASTON: That's correct. The home team furnishes the replay system. The first instance, we will have that Georgia Tech plays at Auburn, and ACC crew that is officiating the game, but an SEC replay team that will review the ACC work.

BOBBY GASTON: We submitted it to the NCAA. Supervisors felt like we'd like for it to be reviewed, but the NCAA felt like that would require too much attention from the review team working around the clock and they couldn't do what they wanted to do. So for this year, at least the only time you can have clock adjustments is based on overturning a play. So it means it's a reviewable play, and then you have an overturn, then you can either take time off or add time back to the clock.

BOBBY GASTON: That's another one that we submitted. It's obvious there is going to be a fifth down and they're about to miss it, I am going to figure out something on that buzzer. No fifth down. So I am going to figure some way get word down there that you are about to have a fifth down.

BOBBY GASTON: The NCAA did reject the down, and another one we submitted to them, was they had in a PAC 10 game where they called a leaping foul on a field goal, and caught it and initiated it, but they did not get on automatic first down. So an option that they gave them was you either take half of the distance to the goal, which did not make a first down, and replay the down. But actually, see, that was a goof. So that's whether he got in. Well, we don't review penalties. For instance, let's say we are reviewing a touchdown play at the goal line. Whether or not you scored or not. We can do that obviously because reviewable play. But in determining let's say that we rule a touchdown on the field, but when we look at the replay, we realize that the runner was tackled by the face mask which was not called, and he was down at the one yard line. So, what are we going to do? We're going to put the ball on the one yard line but we can't review the penalty so since it wasn't called, we can't say it was a face mask?

BOBBY GASTON: Well, one conference wanted to submit fighting. I was opposed to that because it took us till Wednesday to find out how many people were involved in the South Carolina game. I don't think we wanted to stop the game until Wednesday. Thank you very much for your attention. I appreciate your help in educating the fans that sometimes they going to want to -- they are going to get very upset with pass interference. That's not reviewable. We really need your help in educating the public what is reviewable what's not reviewable, and beyond that, I need your patience because it is uncharted waters and as we feel our way along. We'll do nothing but get better. As I say, hopefully just after a couple of games we will have it pretty well knocked and it should work as it should, and the Big 10 people tell me that everybody was happy with the way it went last year. I am sure that you will be too. Thank you so much for your time.