College football continues to become more of a billion dollar enterprise rather than a sport year over year. As so much money is on the line every year, fans and programs continue to call out some of the biggest issues in the sport. One of the biggest issues everyone has with college football is how inconsistent the officiating can be.
Every fanbase can cite which officiating crews are good, and which crews could lead to both teams tearing their hair out. As there's clear flaws with some of the officials, everyone has called for college football to find a way to find better officials. Before college football can even fix it's big flaw, the NFL could make it a full blown crisis.
The NFL's officiating standoff has college football in a critical position
In the NFL world, a story that's flying under the radar is the fact that replacement referees may be making their return. The NFL and the NFL Referees Association are currently in toxic negotiations with both sides blaming each other for the lack of a better deal, and even for each other spreading false information.
The NFL is expected to soon hire referees from the college ranks to have them at team camps to prepare in case a deal isn't made.
The expectation is currently that the referees hired would come from smaller colleges, and would likely be the officials each team deploys at their practices. While that's currently the plan, the NFL's crisis could eventually reach the point that the NFL goes after the referees each conference uses in the games.
College football reaching a point where they would need to scramble for officials in the Summer would be a major disaster that we'd see reflected on the field. The hope for the NFL and NCAA should be the NFL referees reaching a new agreement, otherwise everyone could be in for a nightmare football season.