Saturday's game will be officiated by SEC officials.

[Mama_Bull]

If our guys do what they are supposed to do, the SEC refs will be a non-issue. 

BTW, just to let you know at 4:42 a.m. the weather outside our hotel in Columbia is gorgeous!  No humidity.  What a nice change of pace.

[AUtiger87]

This is NOT good

How about we wait and see how they officiate before we judge them............

Well, lets just say I would prefer "neutral" or Big East refs.

Actually, so would I.

[JrGMan2004]

Yeah, I would think you'd see probably ACC refs for a game like this... or at least, that makes the most sense to me... but like someone else said, the contract was signed when we were with C-USA... so........

[Bull Matrix]

Please no Thomas Ritter. If Ritter is the ref then we might as well forget about it because that has to be the worse SEC official. I will take Rocky B Goode over Ritter anyday, and that is not saying much.  I just hope our guys can keep their composure because there are going to be some bad calls. You can bank on that.

[USF Colby]

I don't even know who Thomas Ritter is but as a Gators fan I almost always have complaints every game over officials calls, and i'm sure if I saw Thomas Ritter on Saturday I would recognise him as one of the bad ones I just don't pay attention to the names of the officials.

Just the referee himself doesn't make the calls though, it's the other people who are with them that see the play and then report to the head official. Sure if the referee thanks he saw it different he can override them, and when that happens that is a problem but in most cases the bad calls are made by the other guys on the field, not the referee he's just the figurehead.

But yeah be prepared for some bias, the SEC definitely does not want a loss to an upstart team like the Bulls it would look bad plus it might effect the chances of the SEC getting a 1 loss team into the national title game again.

Thats kind of stupid that they would do that though, they get unbiased refs for the bowls why not for non-conference games that could have huge implications on the season for both teams.

[USF-PMR]

Bogus - Visiting teams need the comfort of bringing their OWN conference officials to keep it real.  This BullS*&%.

Now we really may only win by 3.

[Joe]

We're being paid 600k to come play this game, normally for these pay games the school paying chooses the officials.

I think some are making it a big factor. The SEC rfs certainly didn't help UT at Cal...

[AUtiger87]

SEC refs are just plain bad in my experience.  Usually Auburn is on the receiving end of the bad calls when SEC refs are used for an OOC game.  Last week was the first time in a while that I can remember things going our way.  Even so, there were still poor calls/non-calls against Auburn.  It really does go both ways.  Most fans, however (me included) think their team gets screwed.  There's not a conspiracy.  There will be some bad calls.  Let's just hope none of them actually affect the outcome of the game.

[Bull94]

We're being paid 600k to come play this game, normally for these pay games the school paying chooses the officials.

I think some are making it a big factor. The SEC rfs certainly didn't help UT at Cal...

They didn't hurt them any though. Cal had 2 times the penalties for twice as many yards.

Same with KSU v Auburn. KSU had 16 penalties for 141 yards.

[Bull Matrix]

USFCOLBY,

Thomas Ritter did the UFvsTenn game last season. If you were watching that game you would know how bad that officiating crew really is. He was doing the Kansas StvsAUB game and he made bad calls for both teams. USF fans would remember Ritter from that USFvsArkansas game in where he called back the Kawika Mitchell TD back for some stupid reason that he couldnt even to explain to Coach Leavitt. Leavitt sent in tapes to the SEC office for review but it really didnt matter. Thomas Ritter sucks