American Athletic Conference Officials

Sep 7, 2013; Philadelphia, PA, USA; A member of the American Athletic Conference chain gang watches as Temple Owls and the Houston Cougars play during the first quarter at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports

In their first year of inception the newly formed American Athletic Conferece has faced a vast amount of adversity. From the fact that one of the their strongest schools Louisville is leaving, a weak school in Rutgers is also leaving and their other two strong schools Cincinnati and Connecticut are also trying to leave as soon as possible. Just keeping the AAC together has been a struggle.

From administration changes and decisions that leave people scratching their heads the AAC has brought a number of problems on itself. One of those problems being their own officials. From missed calls, to botched calls, to not knowing what they actually called a penalty on the AAC officials have made a mockery of officiating at times this season.

Bit of a disclaimer here I have refused to watch majority of AAC games this season that did not include that Cincinnati Bearcats. Although I did watch the Orange Bowl between Ohio State and Clemson that was officiated by AAC officials.

While watching Cincinnati games in both football and basketball this season I couldn’t help but notice the atrocious officiating that occurs. Certainly while watching basketball it was evident, Jim Burr still calls games, of course it is going to be bad. As a fan you should never know officials by name, if you do that means they have to big of an effect on the game.

This past weekends game between Cincinnati and Louisville really just hit the nail on the head. The eight minute delay to review the out of bounds call, the reversal then the reversal of the reversal was the epitome of AAC officiating. Second guessing, not really sure of what you’re doing is the name of the game in the AAC.

There have been games this year where no fouls are called, and others where more fouls than you can count are called. Fouls away from the ball occur so often you aren’t really sure what happened. Players look confused, coaches are infuriated and the officials just stand there looking dumbfounded. Missing blatant fouls has also been a problem, case in point Shaq Thomas this weekend was elbowed hard in the head as he went for a layup, no call by the officials, yet Montrezl Harrell goes back down the court gets touched on the wrist and a foul is called.

Don’t even get started on football officials. The AAC made a mockery of officiating in the Orange Bowl, motioning the wrong direction, calling the wrong penalty on the wrong team, player or coach. Then there was the Louisville game with Cincinnati where they refused to review two key plays, missed multiple cheap shots on both teams and again made a mockery of officiating.

I know many people will say I’m just some butt hurt Cincinnati fan, I’m a sore loser and so on and so forth. Yeah I’m mad we lost some games we may have one if the officials were competent, you’d do and say the same things if it happened to your team. Everyone can agree these AAC officials are awful there is no denying that. Nothing will change though, Mike Aresco will continue to sit on his rear and add teams like Tulsa while Cincinnati, Louisville and Connecticut waltz off into greener pastures.

*Double Disclaimer, this is an opinion piece. Some of you wonderful people fail to realize what opinions are.