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Pac-12 hires consulting group to review football officiating

Nick Bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

The Pac-12 seems serious about fixing issues with its football officiating.

Per the San Jose Mercury-News, the conference has hired a consulting firm to review its officiating processes. The league dealt with a self-inflicted scandal in 2018 when Woodie Dixon, an untrained official, didn’t agree with a targeting call in a game between Washington State and USC. His disagreement with the trained officials watching the game meant a targeting foul was not called.

Sibson [Consulting] is expected to begin work as soon as next week, according to the Pac-12, with the start of training camp as the targeting completion date. A summary will be made available to the public upon completion.

The move comes at the behest of Pac-12 athletic directors, including Arizona State’s Ray Anderson, who leads a working group focused on officiating.

“This is something the ADs want done,’’ Anderson told the Hotline on Friday.

“I applaud (commissioner Larry Scott) and the conference office for accepting, ‘You guys are right. We’ve got to do it. Now, let’s go.’’’

USC beat Washington State on Sept. 21

The controversial call came in the third quarter of the Trojans’ win over Washington State when Cougars linebacker Logan Tago made clear helmet-to-helmet contact with USC QB J.T. Daniels. Anyone who watches college football on a regular basis would have deemed the hit worthy of a targeting foul.

Except Dixon. After replay officials at both the stadium and league offices said it was targeting, Dixon overruled the call. He said it wasn’t. Targeting was not called and Tago got to stay in the game.

Dixon’s actions were made public in an October report by Yahoo Sports. The day after the Yahoo report was published, Scott admitted there had been a mistake made in its review procedures.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve made mistakes in terms of our procedures involved with replay review in the command center,” Scott said at Pac-12 media day. “We mixed administrative oversight and leadership with real-time replay review calls made by experts on the field, in the stadium, and in the command center. Moreover, we’ve allowed for ambiguity about who’s got the final call and who makes the ultimate decisions in replay review.”

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One of two controversial targeting calls in the game

Tago’s hit wasn’t the only one that Pac-12 officials messed up. USC defensive end Porter Gustin wasn’t called for targeting in a hit that was very much worthy of a targeting call.

Washington State coach Mike Leach texted multiple Pac-12 executives after the game, even calling Dixon a “coward.”

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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