King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Oklahomans agree: Instant replay is a joke! OK, one state down, 49 to go.

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Sept. 20, 2006 | A whole lot of people spent the first part of this week complaining about instant replay. I was on jury duty. Same thing, really. They're both inefficient, slow, annoying and not guaranteed to produce the truth.

But all of a sudden I have a whole bunch of friends in Oklahoma who agree with me that instant replay is a blight on the republic. Funny how having your ox gored once can galvanize the mind. Not to mention what it does for the ox.

Here's what happened, in case you've been sequestered: Oklahoma lost a football game at Oregon Saturday partly because of two blown calls by the officials, and then compounding failures by the replay officials to overturn those blown calls, at least one of which was beyond obvious on replay at the time.

The Ducks had scored a touchdown to make the score 33-27 Sooners with 1:12 left in the game. Oregon then recovered an onside kick. Instant replay clearly showed that a Duck had touched the ball before it had traveled 10 yards, which should have resulted in Oklahoma being awarded possession. The Sooners could have run out the clock for the win.

Inexplicably, the play wasn't overturned, but just for good measure, replays also showed that Oklahoma had actually recovered the ball, which is also the sort of thing for which teams are usually rewarded with possession. Unfortunately for the Sooners, who recovers the kick is not reviewable.

That's because -- wait, I have no idea why that is. If instant replay is designed to get to the truth, why are some things reviewable and others not? Who recovers a ball isn't a judgment call.

Oregon's subsequent drive was aided by a pass interference call against Oklahoma. This one wasn't as clear, but it sure looked like the pass had been deflected at the line of scrimmage, which would have negated the interference call because once the ball is touched, the defender is no longer barred from hitting the receiver.

The replay officials declared that the replays didn't contain irrefutable proof of the deflection, the penalty stood and Oregon drove for the winning touchdown, 34-33. Do keep in mind, though, as you listen to Oklahomans whining, that the Sooners still could have won the game, but they had a 44-yard field-goal attempt at the gun blocked.

The Pac-10 conference, which provided officials for the game, reacted by acknowledging the error on the kick call, apologizing to Oklahoma and suspending both the on-field and replay crew for one game.

Oklahoma overreacted. The university president, David Boren, sent a letter to Big 12 conference commissioner Kevin Weiberg asking Weiberg to lobby for the removal of the Oklahoma-Oregon game from the record books.

Next page: Bob Stoops can make a million mistakes per game but won't forgive replay officials one