Beneath that layer of seething sensibilities and veiled threats, however, there's a question worth asking: How much long-term damage did it do to the Pac-10 when officials on the field and in the replay booth — Pac-10 officials — blew calls down the stretch, allowing the Ducks to escape, 34-33?

Since then, TV studio hosts have shaken their heads over Pac-10 officiating. Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez told ESPN.com last week, on the subject of the now-defunct concept of split crews, "The Pac-10 guys protected their teams. It's still not uncommon, obviously."

The potential is there for the fiasco to be remembered long after the seasonal effect on either Oklahoma or Oregon — although if the Sooners win next week against Texas and remain a one-loss team, the retrospective focus on those events in Eugene will burn bright.

"This is terrible for the Pac-10," says Ed Cunningham, the former Washington center who analyzes games on ESPN. "The image was already down because of the bad losses, from a playing-credibility standpoint. Now you throw this on top of it, and the general credibility is thrown out the window.

"Trust me, the rest of the country is kind of snickering at the Pac-10."

A canvass of the nation's 10 other Division I-A conferences reveals that the Pac-10 is the only league with a rule stipulating that its officials work its nonleague home games. A spokesman explained last week, "We believe our officials are honest and have integrity, and we believe officials from other conferences are the same."

No doubt, they are. But most of the nation is liable to remember two things: First, the Pac-10 stands alone with this rule, and second, it made horrible calls down the stretch at Oregon, seemingly ignoring replays.

"It's a double whammy," says Hugh Millen, the Seattle radio/TV analyst who was a quarterback at Washington. "A blight on two fronts."

Kirk Herbstreit, the ESPN analyst, said he thinks the football image of the league already was on shaky ground.

"I would say the Pac-10 has the most inconsistent officiating year in and year out of any conference in the country," Herbstreit said in an e-mail. "It becomes painfully obvious during the nonconference part of the season, when schools from other conferences come into their backyard."

The decisions at Oregon constitute the worst officiating episode in the league in some time. Some others:

• The 2002 "backward pass" call that ended the Apple Cup with Washington winning in three overtimes, a ruling Pac-10 supervisor of officials Verle Sorgen said he wouldn't have made.

• A fumble by Oregon State quarterback Derek Anderson on a sneak in 2003 that wasn't so ruled, taking away a chance at a comeback victory by Boise State.

• A catch that was wrongly counted as a touchdown by USC against California in 2002, in a two-point Trojans victory.

Still, every conference has its officiating blunders. A few years ago, the Big Ten endured a memorably bad such season.

But could the replay mess in Eugene be representative of a greater problem with Pac-10 officiating? Most observers critical of the call at Oregon don't allege a sub-par level of officiating in the conference.

"I think everybody from another conference [believes] the other conference's officials stink," says Cunningham.

Neither former coaches Jim Walden of Washington State nor Don James of Washington discerns a difference in quality in officiating in the Pac-10 and the rest of the country.

"I was never that critical of it," said James, who retired in 1992. "I felt it was comparable to what we got in the Big Ten or around the country."

Walden, who left WSU in 1986, moved to Iowa State and is now an analyst for WSU radio broadcasts, says he thinks Pac-10 officiating is "pretty good, in the five years I've been watching it." He adds, though, that he thinks pass interference is called too tightly, and that the Pac-10 is too quick to flag inconsequential fouls far away from the play.

Another former Pac-10 coach who later had experience elsewhere is Bruce Snyder, Arizona State coach from 1992-2000 before he went on to assist John Robinson at UNLV.

Coaches routinely file written evaluations of the officials. Snyder, as a head coach, says that in a game with 15 total penalties, he would typically agree with "10 to 12," but also would question two or three non-calls.

"I have found them all to be of high integrity, I really have," Snyder says of officials. But he draws a distinction between being biased and being "human."

As it is, says Snyder, officials making hairline calls might be apt to come down on the side of their conference in nonleague games.

"Officials sit in meetings with coaches from their conference, and their commissioner, and the director of officials," Snyder says. "So their lives center around their conference. You certainly don't want to err on the other side. Human nature would tell me you wouldn't want to do that.

"I'm not saying that's what Gordy [Riese] did. I'll bet he's done 10 games or more of mine, and I thought he worked really hard at being even-handed."

One proposal getting increased scrutiny because of such beliefs is that of a national pool of officials, who wouldn't have a conference affiliation.

For now, one aspect of Pac-10 officiating is indisputable. The league almost annually tosses more penalty flags than other conferences.

"It was the most over-officiated conference," Snyder says.

Last year, Pac-10 teams averaged about seven penalties a game, second to the Big 12's 7.8 among BCS conferences, but far above the Big Ten's 5.5. A study by the Times in 2003 found that in a five-year period from 1998 to 2002, Pac-10 officials assessed far more penalties than any other BCS conference.

The Pac-10's Sorgen acknowledged that difference but ascribed it mostly to the Pac-10 style of multiple formations, shifting and motion.

One coach whose teams were regularly among the most penalized when he was in the conference was Washington State's Mike Price, now at Texas-El Paso. He doesn't have anything directly negative to say about Pac-10 officials, but the Miners in his first two years have been a relatively benign 47th and 68th nationally for fewest penalties.

Referring to his WSU years, Price says, "We got flagged a lot. Now we're not. It's amazing how different it is."

Price concedes he and his colleagues aren't always unbiased either, adding, "That's a coach talking."

But after the heist in Eugene, the coach is joined by a lot of other people nationally, and the words haven't been kind to the Pac-10.

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com

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