rootube said:
Stone44 said:
Hire physically fit young men 30-45 years of age who are properly trained instead of the overweight insurance salesmen in their fifties who can't run or see very well. Also, you're never allowed to work a game where you or any of your relatives attended. There is no way I could honestly call an Aggie game.
This is complete ignorance on your part about how this works. These refs get experience like players working through the ranks of high school and up through the ranks of college.
A ref I know personally, who made it to the top tier HS football had to quit because his real job was too demanding and he didn't have the time to indulge in the thankless and essentially unpaid labor (by professional standards) of refing HS sports.
What you are suggesting is that we completely throw that experience and training in the garbage so we have refs who don't have belly fat but have no experience. Sounds like a perfectly reasoned plan with zero chance of failure. Also most refs I know are extremely fit and would run circles around the average HS kid.
And this is why it isn't likely to have full time officials. While these guys are working their way up and getting officiating experience, most are doing the same in their career. So most these guys at the top level of college football are working full time, so I don't think it makes financial sense on their part to quit that for $100K/year to be an official, knowing you might lose your job after any given week, and it doesn't make financial sense on the conference end to offer 50 refs, $250K for working those games.
It makes more financial sense on the SEC's part to offer the most money for the best officials to work their games.
It makes the most sense from an integrity standpoint for the P5 conferences to have a pool of officials that is available to work any game so that there is no incentive for an SEC (or B12 or whatever) official to have any appearance of favoritism to a potential playoff bound team near the end of the season.