Will pass interference ever be subject to video review?
The wide-open Canadian Football League is ahead of the NFL and major college football in at least one key way – the CFL permits coaches to challenge pass interference, called or not called, at any point in the game.
Thus, even when a receiver and defensive back collide and pass interference is not called, a CFL head coach can throw the red flag and the officials will video review the play. At that point, officials may impose an ‘after the fact’ pass interference penalty on either team.
Radical? Maybe.
Necessary? Perhaps.
Along with holding, pass interference is one of the most subjective calls in football. Inconsistency between officials is rampant and well established. A fact of football life, so to speak. What constitutes pass interference in one game might not necessarily be the case in another.
Pass interference can also alter the complexion of a game, although at the NCAA level the penalty is just a 15-yarder rather than a spot foul under NFL rules.
Yet, don’t expect pass interference to ever undergo the same level of intense scrutiny at the FBS level that it does in the Great White North.
Why? Once that happened, the precedent has been set and the outcry for holding and other penalties to be subject to video review would begin in earnest.
“When you begin crossing that line, you risk changing the game and changing the flow of the game,” SEC Coordinator of Officials Steve Shaw told Gamecock Central in a one-on-one interview during the conference spring meetings in Destin, Fla. “In college football, every play is reviewed. But do you really want every holding call, every pass interference, every chop block to be reviewed. Where do we end with this? We’ve tiptoed to allow some judgment calls to be reviewed. But those are around player safety or significant impact to a player such as disqualification (targeting, etc.).”
Simply, college football isn’t ready to take the radical step the CFL did a couple of years ago. Nonetheless, Shaw acknowledges the CFL rule allowing review of pass interference has the support of some college coaches.
“I don’t think we’re ready to start reviewing common fouls in a game,” Shaw said. “But I know there are a lot of people that probably want that. We have looked at it. Sometimes, be careful what you ask for. It has been discussed. I don’t see it being adopted in the short-term window. The long-term window? I don’t know.”
The fact pass interference is just a 15-yard penalty in the college game compared to the NFL decreases the odds of the NCAA adopting the CFL rule in the future.
“In the NFL, you can have a play from midfield and a pass thrown into the end zone with pass interference and they put it on the 1-yard line,” Shaw said. “It’s not giving them a touchdown, but it’s virtually that. Ours is not quite as severe. So, I’m not sure we’re ready yet to go to (review of pass interference).
“We have gone to review of judgment calls like targeting and illegal blocks on onside kicks and 12 men on the field. There are some things that we’re now allowing that 10 years ago we would never have thought of. Where will we be in 10 years?”
Should the NFL adopt the CFL rule and otherwise subject pass interference to replay review, the SEC could take a second look, Shaw said. However, since the CFL adopted the rule only a couple of years ago, the data sample remains small.
That could change in a few more years.
“We’ll watch what happens in the CFL and see if the NFL adopts anything like it,” Shaw said. “We’ll watch it closely.”
