Alabama football is without question the best in the country, but the circumstances surrounding their dominance are downright aggravating.
Alabama is undefeated, having one every game this season by at least two touchdowns. There is no one out here arguing that they haven’t fought hard this season to be where they are. However, the question now is this: are the officiating crews of the SEC helping the Tide out where they can? I say yes; hear me out.
Against Mississippi State on Saturday that Alabama defense has been lights out. I won’t debate that at all. But take a closer look at the Mississippi State drive that ended the half. Obviously, you can’t blame the officiating crew for the missed field goal but you can blame them for two touchdowns being called back.
The first? Running back, Kylin Hill, dove for the end zone and scored. However, it was called back due to a highly questionable block in the back. Next Mississippi State went back to the drawing board and threw a touchdown pass. That one was called back due to a flag for delay of game on Fitzgerald, though they waited until the play was over for the call instead of blowing the play dead.
The other big issue with the Tide this season is the targeting penalty and how it always seems to ensure that team’s best defenders are out either late the week before or early in the game against Alabama. Once it’s just unfortunate for someone, twice is a coincidence, but this seems to be becoming a trend that is working out in the Tide’s favor.
Listen to James Carville speak on it on set at College GameDay prior to the Alabama LSU matchup. He outlines the four teams- Missouri, Tennessee, Texas A&M and LSU- that were victimized by this theory.
ESPN issued an apology to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey for those comments, but could there be any truth to them? It looks to me like Alabama is getting the benefit of the targeting call taking out the player from those teams who really could have changed the road map of those games.
I’ll let you make your own decision on this, but all of these “coincidences” have me unhappy with the referees and the conference itself for what seems like blatant favoritism toward the Tide.