Call weighting: Pac-10 officials throw critics another red flag

They say the first step to curing addiction is admitting it. So the Pac-10 Conference needs to come clean and say it:

"This is the league of lousy calls."

This is the league of the infamous "backwards pass" in the 2002 Apple Cup; the replay fiasco in the 2006 Oregon-Oklahoma game; the what'd-we-miss, no-replay travesty that almost cost Oregon State against Washington last November; and now, the nonsensical celebration penalty against Jake Locker and the Huskies last week.

I can't say with certainty that Pac-10 football officiating is the worst you'll find around the country. But we can say this: Historically, there are more flags dropped in this league than others. And a plurality of coaches around the country — surveyed by The Times last year — believe that it's the worst.

At the very least, the Pac-10 has an image problem, if not an officiating problem.

There are a lot of good officials in this league. But there are also a lot of them that believe flags are best thrown, not left in the pocket.

The flood of national dissent over the call Saturday ought to tell the league something, and never mind hiding behind the folderol of parsing words in the rule or officiating "points of emphasis" for 2008.

Tuesday, Pete Carroll, the USC coach, weighed in fairly eloquently on the subject on the Pac-10 coaches' conference call.

"Anything that has to do with a prearranged thought [to celebrate] is wrong," Carroll said. "I'm totally in support of it. But you have to allow for the human nature of the kids and just give the guys some latitude to express the joy and excitement and thrill. We don't know sometimes how that's going to unfold.

"These kids are having the moment of their life. They might not do it exactly as you think they should."

Already, Jake Locker is a cautionary tale up and down the West Coast, and probably beyond. California coach Jeff Tedford said he showed it to his team. So did Mike Riley at Oregon State.

"Personally, I thought it was a little ticky-tack," said Tedford.

In other words, business as usual in the Pac-10.

Tough Trojans ticket

Tuesday, eBay was littered with tickets for Saturday evening's touted matchup of Ohio State and USC at the L.A. Coliseum, and it's obviously a seller's market. Most of those peddling tickets are expected to get several hundred dollars for a pair. One seller was asking $1,500 for two on the 45-yard line.

Who knows? For that price, you could get to see the next great NFL quarterback. Of course, he might only be warming up, not playing.

That's a reference to the New England Patriots' Matt Cassel, now the starter after Tom Brady's injury. As Carroll points out, Cassel hasn't started a game since high school; in 2003, he lost a battle at USC with Matt Leinart to replace Carson Palmer, and served only as a backup through the rest of his Trojans days.

Carroll will no doubt have an eye cocked Sunday to the Jets-Patriots game, pitting the two NFL teams he once coached.

"It's the dream matchup we've all waited for," Carroll joked. "[Brett] Favre versus Cassel."

Freed of trees

Tuesday afternoon, four tree-sitters descended an 80-foot redwood outside Cal's Memorial Stadium, symbolically ending the seemingly endless.

That was the controversy over Cal's drive to build a 142,000-square-foot facility for athletic training, locker rooms and office space, something that has long been seen as essential to retaining coach Jeff Tedford. It was held up in court almost two years before the recent lifting of an injunction.

Tedford says the delays were used against Cal in recruiting.

"Oh yeah, and rightfully so," he said. "It's taken so long. It just seemed like one hurdle after another got put in front of us. Now it's over. There's no more trees out there."

And what's more ...

• Arizona QB Willie Tuitama has completed 42 of 54 passes (78 percent).

• Cal is breaking with tradition and traveling Friday to its Saturday game at Maryland. Since the Terps lost at Middle Tennessee last week, it might not matter if the Bears took a red-eye.

• OSU's Riley says he's sticking with freshman punter Johnny Hekker of Bothell, although Hekker has averaged only 28.6 yards, has had a couple partly blocked and been tackled once himself.

• In a bit of scheduling weirdness, OSU, which hosts Hawaii on Saturday, has played five straight games away from Corvallis. It finished last year at WSU and Oregon, played in the Emerald Bowl, then began 2008 at Stanford and Penn State.

• The bus shouldn't get lost going to the stadium when UCLA visits BYU on Saturday, as both Bruins coordinators, Norm Chow and DeWayne Walker, used to work for the Cougars — Chow for 27 years. It'll be the third time in 370 days the teams have met.

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