The last regular season games of the year are commonly referred to as “Rivalry Week” games and they creates some interesting scenarios. When watching your team play out of conference against an in-state or out-of-state rival, do you ever question who is officiating the game? It’s really pretty simple. All of this is arranged well ahead of time. Years, in fact. Typically, the athletic directors get together and agree on who will work the game.
In past times, say 25 or 30 years ago, split crews were used. In other words, the officials working the game would be from both team’s conferences. This was really not a good solution. There would be enough differences in the mechanics that things wouldn’t flow smoothly during the game. It may sound trivial but when officials are not used to working with one another, the simplest deviation from routine can cause big problems.
Let’s say a measurement for a first down needs to occur. In order for that to work flawlessly, everybody has to perform a certain task efficiently. If the same routine is not used by officials from another conference, something as simple as performing a measurement to determine a first down can create havoc.
Usually, the conference from which the visiting team belongs will provide the officials for the game. If you go back and look at the Florida at Florida State game from last season, November 25, 2022, you will see a crew from the Southeastern Conference working the game. Fans will argue that it’s not a fair arrangement. The only alternative is to treat it like a bowl game and use neutral officials from another conference. The problem with this is that other conferences may not have enough officials to send a crew. They are busy staffing their own games.
If fans would look at it from the big picture point of view, they could sit back and say “wait until next year. We’ll get them then.”