Phoenix – The Mountain West Conference is not only getting its hands on instant replay this season, it plans on putting it in the hands of its football coaches.
As many Division I-A conferences follow the Big Ten’s lead from last year and adopt instant replay, the Mountain West wants to take it one step further – allowing coaches to challenge calls.
“Right now we’re favoring coaches’ challenge,” MWC commissioner Craig Thompson said as the Bowl Championship Series meetings ended Wednesday. “And in a little survey here, we may be the only conference in the country that has a coaches challenge next year.”
It’s not set yet. The conference athletic directors and coaches return here to vote on it Wednesday, and it must be submitted to the NCAA Rules Committee by June 1. However, all indications point to a system that will be similar to that used in the NFL.
“They want to be able to say, ‘That ball was coming out,”‘ Thompson said, “just because the guy upstairs didn’t see it that way.”
This will differ from the Big Ten, which last season became the first conference to utilize the experiment. The Big Ten has an official who can call for a replay and review it on a monitor. Coaches have no say in the process.
However, it was a huge success. A total of 43 plays were reviewed in 28 of the 57 games using instant replay. Of those 43, 21 calls were overturned. The league averaged one review per game for an average lost time of 2 minutes, 39 seconds.
Other conferences are following suit. Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg said adamantly: “We’re not planning on implementing it. We are implementing it.” Also expected to jump in this season are the Southeastern, Big East, Atlantic Coast and Conference USA.
“We’re excited about it,” Thompson said. “I think the Big Ten showed that there’s a peace of mind, both with the coaches and the fans in the stadium. They still may disagree. They saw it live and saw it on replay and still, because they’re fans of State versus U., they’ll say, ‘That’s still a bad call.’ But at least they got their day in the sun.”
Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry and San Diego State’s Tom Craft head a four-person conference investigating committee. DeBerry said in a statement: “Officials, like coaches and players, are human and make mistakes.
“We had several close calls affect our games this year, and the outcome might have been different if the officials could have used replay.”
But some, namely Colorado State’s Sonny Lubick, are skeptical.
“I was really for this, but I really respect John Madden and on one of his little radio shows he said why college should not go to instant replay,” Lubick said. “He made some valid points. The most valid is every stadium is different. … How many monitors are we going to have?
“Look at the NFL. They wait for the last instance to throw a flag. I’m sure guys in the booth look at ABC or CBS and hear the commentator say, ‘That play should be challenged.”‘
Thompson said the MWC has 87 to 90 percent of its games on TV. Those that aren’t will have either instant replay boards or a minimum of, say, four cameras. Also, like the Big Ten, it would be the visiting team’s option not to use instant replay in nonconference games.
Colorado coach Gary Barnett hopes the Big 12 follows the Mountain West lead.
“I’m all for it,” he said of instant replay. “My only concern is I don’t want the game delayed too much. I do feel coaches have a right to throw a flag.”
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
