Is there any way to fix officiating in the Pac-12?

The refs giveth and the refs taketh away.

The Pac-12 admitted that officials erred in giving Washington State new life towards an eventual win against Arizona State. Hours after the Cougars’ gift, Brock Huard watched as the men in black-and-white negated two touchdowns in the Washington Huskies’ 11-point loss to No. 12 Utah.

Officiating is an inexact science in all sports. But, for whatever reason, the Pac-12 seems to have more issues than most.

“You ask any college football fan around the country where their biggest issues are and who’s got the worst officiating – self-fulfilling prophecy, well, it’s the Pac-12,” said Huard on “Brock and Salk.” “And sure enough, the WSU game goes the way of the Cougs, the UW game, I think unfortunately, goes the way of the other side.”

Related: Three things from the Huskies’ 34-23 loss to Utah

While the Pac-12 downgraded the entire crew working the Cougars game and suspending the line judge after an inadvertent whistle led to a blown call in WSU’s favor, Huard pointed to three “critical misses” that hurt the Huskies. Two of them – an offensive pass interference call against Jaydon Mickens and a holding penalty on a long Myles Gaskin scamper – erased touchdowns. All of the calls, Huard said, involved the refs seeing an end result and assuming there must have been a penalty that made it happen when the play was clean.

Huard, an ESPN color commentator and former UW quarterback, said Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott has worked for years to try to improve the “infuriating” officiating crews in the conference, even bringing in consultants, but they are still known as the worst throughout the NCAA.

“You really don’t want that stigma attached to it,” Huard said. “The SEC doesn’t have that stigma. Sure they’re gonna miss a call here or there, but you… don’t hear that stigma. You hear it here.”

So what’s the fix?

Huard suggested the NCAA start incentivizing referees to be better, rather than penalizing them for mistakes.

“There need to be bonuses and you need to pay these guys more,” Huard said. “They work full-time jobs outside of the refereeing. And I know the NFL guys do, but they get paid more and I would like to see these referees incentivized to do an excellent job.”

But it’s certainly not that easy. Just ask Salk’s co-host, Mike Salk.

Salk: I totally agree, Brock. Anything we can do to make sure somebody other than the kids playing the game get paid more money, that’s a great idea. I go to see the refs. We should definitely pay them more. The kids don’t get paid. We should pay the refs more because they’re the show. Let’s let more of the money go to them.

Huard: Players are incentivized.

Salk: It’s amateur football, what’s the difference whether they get the call right or not? It’s just amateur.

Huard: It’s big, big business.

Salk: It is? I wouldn’t have known, because the kids don’t get any of the money from that. How could it be big business?

Huard: They get thousands of dollars of cost in enrollment, thousands of dollars in bowl gifts, they get tens of millions of dollars if they make it to the NFL.

Salk: That’s not actual money that goes to the kids. No, look, it’s cool, I totally understand, we should be paying the refs more. They deserve more of the money. That’s what I watch for.

Huard: Do you want it to get fixed? Are you sick and tired of this?

Salk: I don’t really care if it’s fixed. It’s amateur football. What’s the difference? You say yourself, it’s amateur football, the kids don’t get paid. So it’s like high school football, just a little bit of a step up and the officiating is a little bit better than it is in high school. And when these kids get to the big time, and actually play in the NFL, then they should have good officiating. Or, we should pay them the money they deserve for being in the big business and then fix the refereeing.

Huard: I know, they have it so bad…

Salk: I didn’t say they have it bad, I just said that it’s unfair. There’s a huge difference. But by all means, the refs should get rich, the president should get rich, the people on the bowl committee – everybody should get rich, except for, you know, the product.

You can hear the full conversation starting around the 25:30 mark of this podcast of “Brock and Salk.”

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