Nebraska and Idaho State are playing in the BCS Championship Football game. Nebraska is winning with a score of 47-3 in the 4th quarter. Nebraska’s tight end catches the ball about 2 yards out of bounds, runs back onto the field and runs it all the way for a touchdown. The referees put their hands up, indicating a TD.
The Idaho State coach asks for the referees to check the instant replay.
The referees say, “You loser, there’s no way you can win this game so you can’t ask for a review.”
Is that cool with you? Why or why not?
Here’s an example of where legal standing comes into play. There is a two car accident. One driver named McCain suffers injuries and the other driver named Obama suffers no injuries. The driver Obama who suffered no injuries is clearly at fault.
A pedestrian named Keyes who observed the accident but who suffered no injuries files suit against the driver Obama who was clearly at fault.
Should the observer of the accident, Keyes be granted standing to sue driver Obama?
You’re still claiming that because Keyes couldn’t win he suffered no injuries. The injury is that the rules were broken. It has nothing to do with the score at the end.
It’s sort of like Nebraska a couple weeks ago. We were winning the game by a lot, against the Huskies. But there was a call where the ball was spotted badly. Coach Pelini contested that call just on principle. I don’t think they changed the spot after review but there had been a bunch of spots which had seemed quite a bit off so Pelini wanted to hold the referees accountable.
Now what if those refs had told Pelini that they would not do a film review of the spot because Nebraska was winning anyway. Suppose they had spotted the ball 5 yards off and Pelini asked for a film review of the spot and was told he didn’t have “standing” to ask for a review because he was winning anyway and the bad spot wouldn’t cause him any injury because they would win anyway.
A bad spot is a bad spot, regardless of whether the inaccuracy is enough to alter the outcome of the game.
I might remind you that Nebraska lost to Texas last year because the refs put one second back on the clock just in that one case. How many other times did one second too many or too less get run off in the course of that game without anybody catching it? That one second only got put back on the clock because it altered the outcome of the game. But that’s not how the game is supposed to be played; every second is supposed to be handled just as accurately as that one second that cost us the game.
Imagine if Pelini had argued earlier in the 4th quarter regarding one second, and the refs had said that one second wouldn’t make a difference to the outcome of the game anyway so it doesn’t matter.