More Instant Replay on the Way

The Big Ten’s experiment was a big hit last season. Now instant replay is all the rage in college football.

Eight more conferences and Notre Dame will join the Big Ten in using video to review certain officials’ calls in 2005, and it will be used in all 28 bowl games.

Replay drew such positive reviews from the Big Ten, the NCAA gave all Division I-A conferences permission to give it a try. Just about all of them jumped on board.

The Atlantic Coast Conference, Big East, Big 12, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference, Pac-10, and Southeastern Conference have all implemented an instant replay system at least similar to the Big Ten’s.

And they all sought out Big Ten coordinator of officials David Parry and his staff, looking for advice.

“We’re proud and happy about what we got off the ground in 2004,” Parry said. “We’ve sent out a lot of mailings and we’ve been to a lot of meetings.”

Only the Sun Belt and Western Athletic Conference are not using replay this season, but both are taking steps to do it next year.

Under the Big Ten’s system, a technical advisor in the press box notifies officials on the field via pager if a play needs to be reviewed. Using video from the television feed, the advisor reviews the questionable call.

“Indisputable video evidence” is needed to overturn a call. Scoring plays, pass plays and number of players on the field are reviewable, but the majority of penalties, such as holding, pass interference and offside, are not.

Replay was used in 28 of the 57 games involving Big Ten teams last season, according to the conference’s stats. Forty-three calls were reviewed and 21 were overturned.