Columnist Ron Kantowski: Robinson is officially in a lather over calls

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004 | 9:49 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

The great thing about being a "short-timer," as John Robinson is fast discovering, is that it gives you free rein to speak your mind.

When Robinson announced this would be his last year as a college football coach, it was like handing Dagwood Bumstead a gold watch and a triple-decker sandwich and asking how he really felt about Mr. Dithers.

Only it's not his boss that has the UNLV football coach all riled up. It's football officials.

The Rebels have played two games since Robinson's resignation announcement and he has complained about the officiating after both. Coincidentally, UNLV won the games, which might make the old coach's criticism even more valid.

Those who have followed Robinson's career say for him to gripe about bad calls is a breach of character. But the past two weeks, he has spent more time on the field than his defense, trying to get the attention of the guys in the striped shirts so that he might recommend a quality Lasik surgeon.

"That was my 363rd game and the first time I complained, so I felt I had one coming," Robinson said Tuesday, a day after he contacted Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson about the quality of officiating -- or lack thereof -- during the Rebels' 24-20 victory at Brigham Young Friday.

Actually, Robinson's grousing about the zebras began the week before but only in a casual manner, when the officials on the Rebels' side of the field against Nevada-Reno had trouble differentiating between in bounds and out of bounds on three apparent UNLV touchdowns. But the Rebels eventually got TDs on two of those possessions and a field goal following the other one so the disputed calls weren't a point of contention, especially in a 48-13 victory. Besides, those were Western Athletic Conference officials.

Jurisdiction wasn't an issue Friday night in Provo where Robinson claims six calls or non-calls by referee Scott Novak's crew went against the Rebels, including three apparent BYU fumbles that would have resulted in a change of possession.

It might have been four blown fumble calls, were it not for UNLV's Brian Nicholson hustle and exuberance. Late in the game, officials were aimlessly digging around the bottom of the pile to determine who had recovered a fumble by BYU's Todd Watkins. Only by then, Nicholson, who had raced downfield from his defensive end spot, was holding the ball aloft, dancing around in front of the Rebels' bench. So I guess that took the guesswork out of the equation.

Besides the missed fumbles, there was the sort of overlooked matter of the game clock. The scoreboard operator at LaVell Edwards Stadium must have a faster trigger finger than Quick Draw McGraw, because I've never seen a clock go to .8 of a second for the final play of a game that didn't involve the Duke basketball team. In football, the clock always winds down from 0:01 to 0:00, which is what ESPN's did on the TV graphic overlay.

I guess I should add that BYU was on the UNLV 10-yard line, threatening for the winning touchdown, when the game clock suddenly became more precise than a Swiss watch.

The Rebels managed to hang on but that didn't preclude Robinson from telephoning Thompson on Monday.

"If I did something wrong, suspend me," Robinson said, joking that he would stay in the house for three hours next fall if the MWC thought a one-game suspension was warranted.

It's doubtful it will come to that.

"There really wasn't a complaint," Thompson said about the status of Robinson's beef. "John cited some particular plays and we talked about the officials program in general. He didn't file a protest or (request a) review."

Thompson said he was still trying to collect the necessary materials -- game films, postgame newspaper clippings, hangings in effigy, etc. -- before deciding whether Robinson had violated the conference's sportsmanship code and warranted a reprimand. But he spoke as if none would be forthcoming.

Ditto for Nowak's crew, which -- brace up, Urban Meyer -- has also been assigned to Saturday's North Carolina-Utah game that is so crucial to the Utes' BCS hopes. In other words, a blown fumble call this week could cost Utah a little more than it did the Rebels. Like $10 million more.

I have friends who are referees who, believe it or not, take great pride in their pastime. But referees are human, regardless of what Joe Paterno thinks, so occasionally mistakes will be made. Only with college football having becoming a business rather than a sport, those mistakes tend to be magnified in the era of instant replay.

If the UNLV-BYU game had only been heard on radio, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But it was seen on TV -- national TV -- so Thompson was forced to sidestep some tough questions during the MWC's weekly media conference call.

He deflected a query about the quality of officiating in the MWC by citing blown calls in bigger conferences, such as the Big Ten and Pac-10. He also noted that the MWC is losing 4-6 officials per year to other conferences or even the NFL, and has had to replace them with junior college or NCAA Division I-AA officials.

"We have lost a lot of good people to other leagues and there's always a challenge to replace them. There is a growing period," Thompson said.

But at least officiating should only be a temporary problem for the Mountain West. I figure once that $84 million from College Sports TV starts rolling in in 2006, some of it can be spent on hiring quality officials.