Big Ten Conference Football Instant Replay Key Points

Related Links:

  • Instant Replay Questions & Answers
  • Replay ABCs

  • The Big Ten Conference, with the unanimous support of its head football coaches, forwarded a recommendation to the NCAA Football Rules Committee last winter and was granted the right to experiment with instant replay on a one-year trial basis.

  • There were numerous meetings between the head football coaches, Big Ten Directors of Athletics, and Coordinator of Football Officiating David Parry during 2003. Those meetings set the stage for a more systematic approach to the study of football replay, which the Conference conducted during the 2003 football season.

  • The Big Ten Conference collected data from 68 televised football games in 2003. The study showed there would have been 42 replay opportunities in the 68 games, approximately .65 replays per game. The rate of reversal was 54 percent, or 23 of 42 reviews would have been overturned. On a base of 10,800 football plays in 2003, 8-12 (of the aforementioned 23) could have been viewed as having a significant effect on the game.

  • The Big Ten replay system will allow for specific types of officiating mistakes to be immediately reviewed and corrected during all Conference games. Replay may be available during home non-conference match-ups with prior approval by the visiting team.

  • The Big Ten instant replay model and the NFL instant replay system are different. In the Big Ten model, only the Big Ten Technical Advisor, working in the press box, can stop a game to review a play. Unlike the NFL model, in the Big Ten neither the coaches nor the game officials on the field may ask for a review.

  • In order for a play to be changed the Technical Advisor must have indisputable video evidence that an error occurred. Television broadcast of the game will be the sole source of whether there is indisputable video evidence.

  • The replay system will not guarantee that all officiating mistakes are identified and corrected.

  • The types of plays that are reviewable include plays that are governed by the sideline, goal line, end zone and end line, passing plays, and other detectable infractions, such as forward progress with respect to first down.