Tennessee football being fined fixes nothing if SEC doesn’t address chaotic issues

Does anybody really think for one second that any fan who threw debris on the field Saturday as Tennessee football lost to the Ole Miss Rebels would ever care about the threat of a fine? They almost cost the Vols a shot at winning the game late with their ridiculous antics.

Anger of those few fans will trump anything else. As a result, it’s safe to say the conference’s decision to fine Rocky Top $250,000 will have no impact on future outbursts by fans of other teams in the future.

Sure, some of the other stipulations in that “penalty” were useful, including requiring the university to use all resources to track down those who threw things onto the field. Does anybody think they weren’t going to do that anyway?

Unfortunate incidents happen at games, and people should be penalized for it, but what happened Saturday night in Tennessee football’s loss goes much deeper than that. Officials in all sports are underpaid. It’s time Greg Sankey take the lead and fix that.

According to a 2014 report from the New York Times, $3,000 was the max an official might make per game. Various reports suggest SEC officials make $800 to $3000 a game. There are seven officials who ref a game.

Putting that into context, the SEC could likely cover the cost of one entire regular season for an officiating crew with the money it just collected by fining the Vols. That’s insane, and underpaying officials is leading to major issues.

Saturday’s unfortunate incident wasn’t about the spot on that play. It was based on a buildup of anger from fans over numerous issues, all of which we wrote about here. The retroactive forward progress call that nullified a clear defensive touchdown along with a couple of other controversial spots is what led to all of this exploding in the end.

You can’t have officials miss that call anymore than you can have them miss the call in the Mississippi State Bulldogs and Memphis Tigers matchup from a few weeks ago on that punt return for a touchdown. These mistakes can’t happen in a league as profitable as the SEC.

So what’s the fix? It’s time to hire officials full-time. You don’t have to pay them millions of dollars, but you can pay them a full-time living. Not only will it amount to getting better officials, it’ll make the officials who exist better as well.

Let’s be honest, many mistakes by referees happen because, well, they aren’t trained the way they should be as referees. It’s not their full-time job. Quarterbacks and coaches spend all week studying film, trying to get better and preparing for opponents. Who can expect a referee paid on a stipend to do the same thing? It’s ludicrous!

Paying officials well and on a full-time basis could go a long way toward fixing some of these issues. Still, there are two other issues the SEC should address. One has to do with camera angles in the game.

That spot at the end of the game was upheld because there was no camera angle directly facing Jacob Warren to see if he got the ball across the first down marker. Earlier in the game, to be fair, a Trevon Flowers interception was upheld because there was no camera angle on one side.

Once again, a league as profitable as the SEC shouldn’t allow that to happen. Both Tennessee football and Ole Miss benefitted at times from the SEC being too cheap to make sure every angle of a play is covered.

Finally, though, the SEC should take the lead in changing the injury rules. They should make it clear that any player who goes down for a play must miss the rest of that drive. Ole Miss has been accused of faking injuries for two weeks in a row now.

Shelling out money to pay officials full-time, adding more camera angles and updating the injury rules would go a long way towards avoiding what Tennessee football fans did last Saturday night. Simply fining the school will do nothing. No fan willing to risk being arrested by throwing stuff onto the field cares if his school will be fined by his decision. The SEC needs to know that.