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Link: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/10488362.htm?1c

The Big Ten dove into its instant replay experiment with a few goals:

Correct bad calls. Check.
Keep in-game delays to a minimum. Check.
Limit costs. Check.

With the Big Ten accomplishing its objectives, other conferences are expected to experiment with replay next season. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said he has discussed it with officials from more than a half-dozen conferences. "I would say the majority of the commissioners I've spoken with have real interest," he said.

To that end, the Big Ten announced Thursday it has forwarded two recommendations to the NCAA. The first requests that instant replay be permitted on a permanent basis for all Division I-A conferences. The second asks for a one-year extension on the Big Ten's replay system for 2005.

The Big Ten actually would like to make instant replay a fixture for conference games. But the NCAA could take a while to approve a permanent change, and the league doesn't want to risk falling victim to bureaucracy for the `05 season.

Delany said Big Ten coaches and athletic directors were unanimous in their approval of replay, which resulted in 21 calls being overturned in 57 games.

Instant replay added just three minutes to the average game time_from 3 hours 13 minutes to 3:16_and cost just $250,000, a fraction of what the NFL spends on its replay program.

And while the average NFL review lasts three minutes 20 seconds, according to the Big Ten, its average review lasted just 2:39.

"Football is a game of errors and reducing errors," Delany said. "Coaches and officials make them, that always has been the case. But football has so few possessions. It's not like basketball with scores and scores of possessions.

"Reviewable plays often deal with changes of possession, and to be able to get back 21 critical plays over the course of season was a real luxury."

Dave Parry, the supervisor of Big Ten officials, said the presence of replay aided his crews.

"Officials became more and more enamored of it," he said. "By the end of the year, I think all 52 officials hoped it would stay. They all want to get it right rather than find out on Sunday or Monday that a huge mistake has been made."

Parry also said replay made the officials better focused.

"Some made it a personal goal not to have replay involved one time (on their calls)," he said. "I think there was a motivational effect to make the men concentrate a little more.

"What it does is create a level of trust. We found coaches saying: `There's no reason for me to scream and holler at you fellows because they're looking at it upstairs.' They're going to get it right, so I might as well calm down and wait for the proper decision."

The only significant tweak to the system came after the Sept. 4 Central Florida-Wisconsin game, when replay officials took four minutes and 39 seconds to determine where tailback Anthony Davis had stepped out of bounds. The result was a one-yard discrepancy from the original spot.

Delany responded by telling officials to use "common sense" when determining whether to review a play.

"There has to be more gain than pain," he said at the time.

In all, play was stopped in only 28 of 57 contests (49 percent) for a total of 43 stoppages and 21 overturned calls (49 percent of stoppages).

"I thought it was a terrific cost benefit," Delany said. "Cost in terms of interruption and money."

by Teddy Greenstein

Mercury News