Suspended official still not enough

Oct 29, 2009, 12:00 AM

Good news for those of you -- OK, everyone - who love complaining about Pac-10 officiating: one of them got suspended. The bad news? Only one of them got suspended. Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott announced on Monday that the conference singled out one official for missing a blatantly obvious face-mask penalty in USC's win over Oregon State on Saturday. Taylor Mays grabbed the mask of James Rodgers, who had scored a touchdown on the play, and ended up ripping his helmet off his head entirely. Mays regrets it. OSU is glad the conference recognized it. The sun rose again the next morning. But if you're going to suspend someone for one call that really ended up being inconsequential, how about punishing officials who blow calls that end up changing the momentum or outcome of the game? The South Eastern Conference suspended the entire crew that worked the Florida vs. Arkansas game two weeks ago. So, for all the blown calls and hand-wringing about the officiating in the Pac-10 the past few seasons - and seemingly this year in particular - the only suspension this season comes on a call that didn't impact the outcome of the play, or the game. Huh. And while we're on the subject of people getting their helmets ripped off their head, that exact same thing happened to Jake Locker in the first quarter of UW's loss to Oregon. No suspension followed. Guess they don't review the film of Husky games anymore. AUTZEN BLACKOUT? A story in The Register-Guard, from Eugene, Ore., yesterday reported that an Oregon student has established a Facebook group dedicated to convincing everyone to wear black to the Ducks' game against USC on Halloween. So now their students have different uniform combinations, too? Look, there's nothing wrong with Penn State organizing a whiteout, or organizing some sort of unified color-wearing effort involving the school's actual colors. But Oregon's colors are green and yellow, not black, or white, or gray, or neon purple-maroon, or whatever weird uniform combo they come up with next. You can't control what the football team decides to do with its ridiculous attire, but the students should know better. Just because the blackout trend is the newest cool thing to do in college student sections, it doesn't mean you're entitled to do it. Black is not one of Oregon's school colors. Maybe they should have a urine-yellow-out, instead. ODDS AND ENDS WSU's playing Notre Dame in San Antonio this week, prompting the obvious question: How many high-school football teams in Texas could beat the Cougars? All of them, or just 95 percent? ...The Los Angeles Times reports that UCLA will use two quarterbacks this weekend, Kevin Prince and Richard Brehaut. Why? Because their offense is terrible. Let's consider this payback to Rick Neuheisel for recruiting Casey Paus while he was at the UW. Now he knows how it feels. ...Jacquizz Rodgers has 14 touchdowns this season and still hasn't fumbled in his career. He's like the anti-Terrance Dailey. Reach Sports Editor Christian Caple at sports@dailyuw.com.

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