Texas Tech football: Why we are all glad the 2019 season is over
No more Mike Defee to spoil our Saturdays
Quick, name one Big 12 basketball referee. I can’t and likely neither can most of the Red Raider fan base. Now, name the worst Big 12 football referee. And all together, the congregation said…Mike Defee.
The thought of going nine months without having to endure the arrogance and incompetence of the Big 12 official known most for the cartoonish guns protruding from his size smedium striped shirt is something we can all relish. It isn’t that Defee is the only Big 12 official that is awful at his job. In fact, this year saw unprecedented ineptitude on the part of this conference’s officiating crews.
But Defee symbolizes everything that is wrong with today’s referees. In the modern age of instant replay, many referees believe that they have become the most important aspect of the game.
We live in a world where retired refs can now become television personalities like FOX’s Dean Blandino and Mike Pereira or CBS’s Gene Steratore, who is the genius that used a notecard to decipher whether the Dallas Cowboys had gained a critical first-down in a nationally-televised 2017 game against the Oakland Raiders.
If officials now can become TV analysts and watch as the in-game referee spends more time on camera than either of the head coaches during the game, is it any wonder that they are starting to act as if they are bigger than the game itself?
Why should we be shocked that any officials act as if they have a God complex? What’s worst is that they never have to answer for their mistakes in the public realm.
And none are worse than Defee. Making certain to draw as much attention to himself as he can by wearing the smallest shirt he can squeeze over his barrel chest and beer-league softball gut, he wants to be known more for having large biceps than for calling a good game.
In week three this year, he flagged Tech’s Douglas Coleman for an unsportsmanlike conduct foul when the safety headed back towards his own sideline before Defee had finished giving Coleman an admonishment, which started by the official putting his hands on Coleman, something that simply should not happen for a reason other than player safety.
That decision cost the Red Raiders a shot at a field goal in a close game and was not the first outcome Defee has influenced against the Red Raiders. He was the official who called two back-breaking and highly questionable roughing the passer fouls against the Red Raiders last year in a nine-point loss to Iowa State in Ames.
Again, Defee isn’t the only incompetent official in this conference. Reggie Smith, who bungled a key call against Tech in the Kansas State game when Kesean Carter was robbed of a TD grab, is also horrible at his job as are a growing number of referees around the nation.
But Mike Defee is the cartoonish symbol of the modern-day college football referee. So it’s more than comforting to know that that we won’t have to think about where he will be spending his Saturdays until next September.