GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Jerry McGee has officiated enough
college football games to know that he's probably missed a few
calls. No matter how much he prepares to get it right on plays
decided by inches and over in a split second, he knows it could
happen again.
But should he miss a call, McGee won't have to wait long before
he hears about it from the Atlantic Coast Conference and its
high-tech officiating review team.
"We're like players and coaches," said McGee, whose day job is
serving as president of Wingate University. "We want to be perfect
on every single play and every single call. That has to be our goal
and any tool that helps us get better is welcome."
The league's 12 teams are scattered across a 1,500-mile
footprint, but an ACC Big Brother is watching almost every call --
from false-start flags to no-calls on apparent holding penalties to
rulings on whether acrobatic catches in the back of the end zone
are touchdowns.
The work takes place in a room that's tucked away on the second
floor of the ACC headquarters and filled with high-definition
televisions, DVRs and computers. The league records televised games
and charts penalties and controversial plays, then forwards them
for evaluation as part of a midweek compilation that is eventually
sent to officials and coaches.
The idea is simple: The league wants to correct mistakes and
reinforce positives as it works to standardize calls and increase
accountability.
"What we now have is really a tool to be utilized like a coach
utilizes video," commissioner John Swofford said. "When you can
see something immediately, whether it something you've done or
someone else has done, you can learn from it.
"The desired result is we continue to get better and better in
terms of officiating. It's what our players and coaches want, what
our fans want and what we want."
The program has its fans among the league's 12 coaches. Maryland
coach Ralph Friedgen said the ACC should do "anything we can do to
make our officials the best in the country." Wake Forest coach Jim
Grobe said the work fosters trust between coaches and officials.
"I think we have a caring group, a group of guys that want to
get it right," Grobe said. "They're just like coaches: they make
mistakes and they're trying to learn from mistakes each week. It's
good for a football coach to be able to get the same information
they're getting from week to week and see their points of emphasis
and how they're getting better. I think it makes us more
comfortable on Saturday when we know that they're really working at
it."
In past years, the ACC looked at footage it had on videotape or
whatever league coaches submitted for review or clarification. But
the league, as it renovated its offices, invested in technology
aimed at providing faster feedback after each week's games.
Doug Rhoads, who became the league's coordinator of football
officiating in January, scouted similar setups in the NFL and the
Big Ten and Big 12 conferences before the ACC designed its command
center. It includes $36,000 worth of flat-panel TVs and other video
gear -- even a telestrator used to critique the 30 or so plays
reviewed each week and sent to both coaches and officiating crew
chiefs.
"With all of these games being televised, let's capture all of
it and build a library of how we want it done," said Rhoads, a
former FBI agent who spent about 30 years as a game official.
"It's a teaching mechanism that's outstanding. It's visual
feedback of how we want it to work."
McGee, who has officiated more than 350 games in his career, is
eager to review each week's release.
"The minute we get it, I shut down what I'm doing and watch
it," he said.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, college interns sat at three
workstations to monitor the game broadcasts and log key plays and
penalties. Plays flagged by the interns or the official are
retained in a computer that compiles them throughout the day and
added to footage submitted by coaches each week. Rhoads eventually
culls the footage into the week's key points.
"It's not a matter of coming down there on Saturday afternoon
and having fun watching football games," Rhoads said. "When we
see a guy come in and put his foot to mark the spot and he's in the
wrong spot, maybe nobody knows. But we know."