Every fans favorite past time is cursing the refs, but what it's actually like to be on that field? LC interviews current SEC ref Blake Parks...Join InsideTexas.com: https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/join/ Purchase The 2024 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football - 12th Annual Edition: https://sites.google.com/view/the-2023-burnt-orange-bible/home Written for the passionate, smart fan who wants more than recycled corporate media content. Find out why it's called The Burnt Orange Bible. Smashwords (compatible with any device, select epub for Apple/Kindle): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1591653 Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/2024-longhorn-football-prospectus-thinking-texas-football/id6554008037 Amazon (Print): https://a.co/d/iVszuhf Be the smartest fan in the room and start Thinking Texas Football today. Listen to the Podcast: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3P0cwAUPNZrsNrTOKOfa6x Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-texas-football/id1721623113 Find Us On Social Media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/InsideTexas Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InsideTexas/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetexas/ https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/
Inside Texas Football
The Truth About SEC Referees
Hey, y'all. Today, we've got a very special interview. We're going to be talking to Blake Parks, who's been an SEC official for over 20 years. He started his career on the field as a field judge and is now up in the booth as an instant replay official. It's a really fun, candid interview. Blake is a great guy and has some really fun stories about Coach Saban and my favorite coach, Coach Leach. It does start kind of in the middle and ends a little abruptly because we end up talking about some personal stuff on either side of that that he may not want to share. But we hope you enjoy this and let us know in the comments if you have any questions. Blake has been great and we hope to have him back. I hope you enjoy. How long have you been? How long have you been doing the reffing? This is my 29th year in the SEC. Oh my gosh. I've been doing that. And are you strictly replay now? Yeah, this is my sixth year in replay after 23 years on the field. Do you miss the field? I'm too old to run. So, okay, it doesn't matter how I miss it or not. Well, I understand that there might be some, you know, some physical issues that come to it. I'm just curious from a psychological aspect whether you miss it or not. It's not the same for sure, but I still am involved. I'm in the stadium and I'm at the game now. So it's it's it's still got a lot of the same flavor, but it's definitely different than being down there. And what what is how does the replay work? What is are you in a central location? Are you actually at the game? How does that work? We're at the game. Usually in a booth, it's around the press box or somewhere up around the media box in each stadium. So we we have a booth at every game and I still travel to every game. So do they do they have because I know in like in some of the professional leagues, like the National Hockey League and certainly like the NFL, they'll have like a centralized location, but you guys are actually ostensibly so you're in the stadium, essentially. Yeah, we have what's called a collaborative process, which means that there is somebody we can collaborate with back in the central video center, but the primary decision and final decisions are made at the stadium that I level. And who makes that final decision? Who has the final call on that stuff? We do in the booth. You do in the booth. Okay. Right. So it's he gets called up and when they're looking at that little screen and they've got their headset on, what are what are the types of conversations like? Are you like is are they conveying to you what they saw? Or are you simply telling them what you saw? How does is there back much back and forth? Or is it pretty one way? No, there's there's back and forth for sure. What's critical in instant replay is that we start with an assumption that the call on the field is correct. Okay, then we have to have enough evidence to prove it wrong. So if we need to be talking back and forth about exactly what is the call? What did you have? What did you see that gives us a heads up on what we're looking for? Right. Is there, you know, one of the questions that they came up when I was talked to some colleagues of mine. So you were a field judge. Is that correct? Is that where you spent most of your time? Yes. For the people that don't understand that particular role, what are the things that you're focused on more than anything else? Field judge is located down the field on the defensive side of the ball responsible mostly the passing game or the edge running game. So we have receivers, contact on receivers, contact against receivers, receivers in and out of bounds, catch no catch, you know, blocks down fields. All those types of things is what we did. There's three of us back there. There's one on each line and one in the middle of the field. And we're responsible mainly for the passing game, which over my time in 29 years has changed pretty dramatically. In what way specifically? Just the short air raid type offense or what way has it changed so much? The intricacy of the routes and the complication of the forward passing game and college and the tempo of the games now, a number of plays being run versus in the day used to be we're going to establish the run game and then throw off of it to try to get down the field. When I first got initially Steve Spurrier was the exception. He was the guy running things nobody else was running. But now his offenses would probably be boring against some of the stuff that's been running today. So over my time, I witnessed an evolution, if you will, of the passing game and the tempo game in college football, which is unbelievable at this point. So, you know, one of my favorite coaches of all time was Mike Leach. I just, just in terms of a personality, he was a very, very fun guy. I'm just curious, in an offense like that when he was at Mississippi State, does that level of intricacy, does that make your job harder? Certainly makes the preparation harder and not necessarily the job itself, but the scouting and the preparation of what's coming at you. I had a wise man tell me years and years ago that the more I could eliminate at the snap, the better official I would be at getting it right. So, half the job is reading what's coming before it comes and then you can be in a better position, you can have a better look, you have a better idea what you're looking for. Love Mike Leach, by the way, and Mike Leach's story. Years and years ago when he was at Washington State, I had his bowl game, holiday bowl in San Diego. It was a bowl game that had nothing on the line except pride. Mike Leach was coaching but not interested. He spent the entire game, three hours of that game talking to me about everything between Tennessee and Tucky where he had coached away first met and that bowl game and that trip, restaurants, sightseeing, anything he could do, we talked about between every single play. Mike Leach's play card, his playbook was written on a three by five index card and he called it a tired game with a three by five index card and never ever really really spent a moment worried about anything that was happening on the field. Love the guy. We're going to miss him for sure. Oh my gosh. He was, he, you know, when you think about some of the, certainly one of the reasons I love college football over the NFL is just people like Leach, you know, you get those types of people, those characters, those stories. And that's a, it's a really, it's really good to hear that he was, and as enjoyable during the game as he certainly was during his press conferences, that's a great, did you, you know, in your experience and first of all, I, again, thank you so much for doing this and I certainly don't want to get you into any trouble, but were there any, any other stories that you can think of some coaches that maybe were super fun to work with and you had a really nice time being with them on the field? Oh, absolutely. I mean, we could spend days and days and days, you know, fortunately at this level, almost all of these coaches are incredible, incredibly successful people that have climbed the ladder and come with this almost all of them are different in some way, but across the board, they're all characters. And you know, you go in and you always have to remember that no matter what your relationship is with any coach, they're always crazy on game day, right? And that's what they are. They're just crazy on game day. So you have to develop a relationship that will carry you through game day with a trust and an ability to communicate winning words and try to keep that thing lighted and that when progressable over every day and badly, but you know, coaches can fall into all the categories. They can fall into wonderful to work with. You don't even want to see a guy to know, I had a coach one time tell me he wasn't speaking to me that day. Just just straight out the gate during the introduction. He's like, you and I aren't chatting. Tell me this is right off the bat. It's the only kickoff. I'm not speaking to you today. I've turned you over to Jesus and there's something to go from here. So the first time we had a file, I tried to tell him it was only turned his back and walked away. He thought it was over. But you know, the funny side of that story is that every time the rest of the day that he encroached, even one blade of grass on my field, I ran him off. I ran him off and ran him off. So they're all over the place. You know, they really are. And some of them are so enjoyable, but some of them are more hard to deal with. But most of the time, it's because they're not in their right mind on game day. Fair enough. And how often during during a season when you were, you know, in your prime of field judging, how often would you see the same team throughout the year? Usually no more than three times. Okay. We get around pretty good and try not to see a team too often and try not to go to a venue more than a couple of times. You might have a couple of home games and a road game from one team. Most of the time, it'd be twice. Sometimes three times. Right. And then with that, obviously you have post season stuff. How is that generally assigned? So the post season is assigned neutrally, Lucas. You could not work your own schools. And then that is an interesting sidebar to my career, because over 29 years, the Southeastern Conference has had exactly two national championships that could be worked by our association. Otherwise, we've not ever been able to have it. So officials all over the country talk about their national championships. We have never had them. We even had one year where Alabama and LSU played each other and they wouldn't let us have it. Both coaches wanted us to have it. We wanted that. But it just don't come around. So we're obviously interested now in what's going to happen this year, because this particular year, you're not going to be able to assign officials through an entire playoff structure, not knowing how your conferences are going to advance. So we don't know how that's going to work yet, but we're hoping this will help us get some more advanced games. And with that, so I mean, just given your experience, do you have any speculation on how you think that might go? Or is it just total unknown at this point? The only model that's out there is the NFL model. The NFL model is they select post season officials and assign them either a wild card game or a divisional round game, and then they advance from there based on performance. So we're hoping that something like that might come into play and we can have a short window of assignments where we only know what we can advance or 10 days in advance who's going out. And then you can wait and see who wins the games to know who gets to start. Because right now, the Southeastern Conference is going to have the lion share every year of playoff teams and/or championship team. So it just makes it hard to get us a game. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. So in your experience, and I understand that a lot were not afforded to you, but was there a post season game that you got to do? Yeah, I've had over 25 post season games. The first year of the 14 playoff, we were fortunate and blessed enough to have the Rose Bowl game with Oregon and Florida State, which was great. Oh, that's cool. Marcus, Marjota, and James, that was the very first playoff game ever. We had that game, but we couldn't have been assigned the following week because I think Alabama was playing Ohio State the other game. So he couldn't take a chance on Alabama winning and us not being able to work. So I was as far as we could go. But we've had, we've had what they call big six games every year. They just can't have our teams ever. Now with, if you don't mind, you said something earlier that I think a lot of people wouldn't necessarily understand. Myself included, which is when you talk about preparing for the game, and you're obviously going to be on the defensive side, at least watching the offenses from the defensive side. What kind of preparation do you go into? What are some of the things that you are doing, maybe personally, and then also just someone in your profession would be doing for a game? So if I walk you through a week of game, of end season game work, it looks something like this. We, we travel on Sunday coming home. When we come home on Sunday, we have to immediately begin to look at, evaluate, and grade the game we just worked. So that's, that's, that's pretty much each Monday. Uh, about Tuesday, we're into meetings, either crew meetings, conference meetings, management meetings, telling us what the flavor of the entire week was, points of emphasis going forward, those types of things. Like maybe by Wednesday, you might be able to sit down a half a day, but by Thursday, you're in the scout for the next week for putting your picks in the work for the following week. On Friday, we travel and actually have meetings on site, uh, talking about what everyone has gathered for scouting, and for tendencies, and all those types of things. Saturday, on game day, we have a long preliminary meeting, pre-game meeting, which goes over, not only the, you know, the points of emphasis for that day, but also logistics, and how we're gonna handle things, how we're gonna handle these, these teams, these sidelines, these, you know, whatever just gets unique about that game. We work the game, and then on Saturday, not after the game, there's reporting today. So it's about 30 hour, 35 hour weeks serious for, for most football officials during this time of year. Now, for SEC officials, are you, are you doing other things? Do you have another job, or is this your full-time gig? No, I'm a recovering banker, uh, but, uh, but for the last, uh, 14 years, I've been in the non-profit late ministry, I run food pantry currently, but yeah, all these guys do this as a vocation, not as their primary line of work. And, uh, you know, these guys have to, it's one of the criteria to get to this level. You must be in a career path that gives you flexibility to do this kind of thing. Fortunately, for me in the banking world, uh, all the bores of directors that I ever worked for thought this was, uh, was a, a good thing for the bank. This was a public relations thing for the bank. So I was always, you know, very well taken care of, you know, do whatever I had to do. But if you can't do that in this job, you're not gonna make it very long. Now, you know, again, I'm, I'm not a scientist, everybody's gonna tell you that. But one thing I do know is that most people, most human beings, really enjoy being light. And, and with that in mind, I'm just curious what brought you to reffing. That's a great question. Uh, that reminds me of something my mother asked me years and years ago. Uh, she was watching something on TV. I was into it with some coach and she said that what would possess you to get dressed up like that, like a clown and go out there on TV and put yourself through all of that. What part of that makes you happy? But you enjoy doing that. It's, it's really a good question. Um, the way I got started in officiating is, is, is, is not a very interesting story. It was financial. To be honest with you, when I was growing up, the minimum wage was $1.65 an hour. I could go call a little league game for five bucks. So thought I could control my social schedule and go make five bucks instead of having a job where I had to report to make a dollar 65. Yeah. But, but as it, you know, as this thing carried on up as it went up the ladder, it is absolutely the most enjoyable, uh, blessed thing that I've been through in my life because of the people I've met, the things I've seen, experiences that come with that. And we don't really even think about what you just ask me. We don't think about the fact that it's controversial, that it's, you know, that it's got such a consequence, that it's, uh, comes with all that. You really don't even think about it. You get to the place where you're, your skin is thick and you just got to trust your judgment on these things. And one thing that people need to always understand is it's not our job to go out and get everything right. That is a statement that everyone would understand about football officiating in general, uh, the world would be different. Our main, we really have two main jobs to do this job. One is to protect the safety of the players. And two is to protect the integrity of the contest. And if we did those two things, obviously our goal is to get everything right. But there's never been a perfect game work. And it's not even really our, uh, you know, a task that we, that we think we can accomplish to work a perfect game. It's just not going to happen. You know, you hear the, you hear the comments all the time, you know, there could be holding on every play. Well, yeah. Sure. You know, there could be lots of things on every play, but did it impact the safety or integrity? And if those two, and answered those two things or no, it's probably fine that we can get it. Uh, if everybody understood that, that's our role. We, we can be in a better place. Do you, do you feel with this, uh, maybe less so now as you're, you're more experienced and you've, you've seen a lot more, but certainly in the beginning, was there a, was there an internal pressure to get things right? Did you feel that or was that, was that the sense all the way through? Did you have that sense of, of those priorities going, going at it or, or in the beginning, I'm wondering if there was that pressure to, because obviously you want to be very good at your job, right? No, that's always there. And it's still there every single week. The, uh, the first boss I ever worked for in the South Eastern Conference was a legendary man named Bobby Gaston, who was a long term, uh, football official, long term coordinator, football officials, played at Georgia Tech back in their hey days on and so forth. But he used to have this statement. He would always say, like your job today is to start perfect and improve. And so if you get that under, you know, if you just get that in your mind, we always strive for that perfection. And we always have internal pressure to be better and better and better and better all the time and continuous improvement. But you at the end of the day, you just got to understand if you strive for perfection and achieve excellence, you probably had a good day. And, and with that, you've, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but you're going to stay with primarily the same crew throughout the year. Is that, is that pretty standard or are they mixing about? The, the on field crews, the eight guys on the field are together all the time, unless they have conflicts. Conflicts would mean, uh, Lucas can't call this particular school or can't go to this particular venue as a, you know, whatever, whatever those regions are, business relations, she have family relations, she have played by the coast, whatever that may be. And they swapped in and out for that in the, in the replay booth, we are a crew of two. And we also travel together, but not with the same crew of eight. So our crew too is always with somebody different on the field each week. And how many, how many crews does the SEC field each year? We have nine currently, we had to add a crew this year because bringing Texas and Oklahoma. Um, and, uh, that's worked out, seemed to work out very well at this point in time, but, uh, it's usually enough crews to let everyone work, uh, 11 or 12 weeks. Okay. And you'll forgive me. These are controversial questions. Um, but they have to be asked, are there, are there makeup calls? Does that happen? Like we're, and you know what I'm talking about here, we're in like, there's a, there's something that seems egregious. So it goes the other way each time. Cause I know that's something that the fans talk about all the time. Yeah, sure. There are never, uh, overt makeup calls, uh, people are humans, right? So you could be raped over something long enough in a day where you're convinced that you might not be seeing something correctly. Uh, but no one's making up a call. Uh, every single snap is a pre snap routine, a play executed and a post snap routine. And then you'd start all over on that process again, you put it away, flush it, start another play for 200 plays. That's the way that works. And you don't have time to worry about on this 140 plays ago. And, and with that is, is this the type of thing? Cause again, it sounds like when you're starting this idea of, of constant resetting in your reps, you're constantly resetting your reps throughout the game. And then you go back on Sunday and you analyze how you did, you give yourself some grades, it sounds like you probably get some feedback from some colleagues or maybe even some, um, superior officials. Is there, is there time in there for you to reflect on? Cause I appreciate what you said earlier about this striving for perfection, but, but you are human. Things are going to happen. Um, has there been anything for you, and I'm not asking you to recount something horrible, but is there been anything for you? We were like, Oh gosh, wow, we just, we might have missed that one. Oh, absolutely. And I don't even mind recounting these. Um, how did Alabama LSU one year? Um, in the, it was mid 2000s. I don't remember exactly when it was, but Alabama LSU and we were driving, Alabama was driving to win the gallon. I was on the pile on. I'm on the goal line on the pile on. They ran a fade route in front of me. And at the moment that I had to try to find the goal line, find the pile on and find my receiver, I missed contact. I missed it. They knocked him down, intercepted the ball. The ball starts running back the other direction and I'm stepping over my receiver following the interception going, I wonder how that happened. Right. So, you know, true enough, it was a horrible thing. Uh, maybe the wrong team won. I don't know. LSU intercepted the pass and ended up winning the game. Um, but yeah, give me, agonize that over that forever and ever. And I don't forget it right now, even all these years later, I can remember that play. There's always plays we like to have back. Um, in my career, I started before instant replay, I can actually remember three or four games that I think the outcome was impacted by a bad call that would have been changed today. Um, but you know, that's just, uh, that's just something you throw in your pocket and live with it. But every single day, no one is harder, no one is more harsh critic on us than us. And the best officials do not try to run away from that call. They try to look yourself in the mirror and try to figure out how did that happen? How can I never let that happen again? And you know, I can forgive myself today because you can't see three things at one time. Right. But it was perfect. It was a perfect storm, but it still was a huge mess at a bad time. And, uh, you know, you have to live with those with, with the, with the pressure of all this, and obviously you were kind of talking about the joy being the people. Um, what, is there anything that just pops in your mind where it was like, you know what, this is, I never would have experienced this in the entirety of my life. Were I not an SEC official? Absolutely. They, these, the people I'm surrounded with over the last three decades are some of the most incredible, successful, grounded people that I ever met. I would consider, you know, if you asked me for my 15 best friends, I would guarantee you 10 of them are in football. And it's just over time, there is something special about the people that commit at this level to everything. It takes to be successful and be around them. Um, y'all will never be able to repay that. And hopefully that's how people feel about me at some level. But that's, that's, that is the best blessing of this whole thing is the people, for sure. One of the, one of the things that, and again, fandom is by definition a delusional state of mind. And I, one of the things that, that gets talked about is certainly from a Texas point of view, is their relief of leaving big 12 officials and by moving into a world of SEC officials. And you've, you've been around long enough to experience the expansion. And now it's expanding again. I'm curious when Missouri came in, when you had A&M come in, was there, was there a difference? Was there an education for them to understand like, Oh, you know what, maybe this is a call in the SEC that wasn't in the big 12. There is, there is a learning curve there. And in spite of a national education program, the charter bring us to consistency, we still work for separate coordinators. And each one of those coordinators has their own opinions and their own ideas and their own, their own systems. And there is subtle differences. Now, I'll say this, there is a much more consistent approach coast to coast today than it was 20 years ago. So it's probably less than it was then. But yes, when, when, even before that, when Arkansas and South Carolina came into the lake, Arkansas was coming out of the Southwest. And they were having to adjust because that was a hot, teen offensive, brand football, and they were coming to a much more physical, hands on, you know, fighting the trenches. And they wanted holding on every play. Right. They thought every play was holding when the truth was that's, that's where the battles were fought in this league. And that's kind of where we are. If you've been listening to the interviews with Sark in Texas, he's been actually saying over the last couple of years that he was preparing for that by being more physical and defensive line, particular and larger and, you know, up front because he knew that's what was going to be facing him when he got here. So we'll see how that works. But the big 12 was known as wide open, run them, shoot them, score more points than the other team and that the South Eastern Conference is a different personality than that for sure. Yeah, it does. It seems like, you know, every league, certainly you want to get down to the minutia, but every, every team has a vocabulary in how they, they operate their game. And, and I think that's the big difference for, you know, fans coming in and you see this. And this is something I think you, you probably experienced yourself is, you know, when you do get into the postseason and you're a big 12, you're an ACC team and you, you may have packed 12 referees and they may have a slightly different vocabulary on the game that they're accustomed to. Obviously, we're not speaking completely different languages here, but there might be some subtlety in the way that they operate that, that for a fan, you know, and again, I don't, I don't think the fandom should be the metric for, for what is right and what is wrong. But at the same time, it is, it is that visual aspect from the outside looking in seems as if things are, you know, just different drastically, even though what you're, you're pointing out is there's a lot of subtlety in it. Yeah, well, Lucas, you're right. Exactly. And fans do play a role because let's be honest right now. What do fans want is more points. Sure. Right. So we've seen rules and philosophies slant to, to reward, you know, reward more points. It's, it's certainly it has gone that way over time. The, I gave you a perfect example of how this worked when coach Hugh Freeze was at Ole Miss. He was kind of the first team in the, in the southeastern conference to try to run the up tempo fast as you could go offense. We really weren't used to that. And with that comes some mechanics of how you handle substitutions when you'll let them snap the ball, how to be equitable between offense and defense. Well, that particular year, he went to the, I believe it was the sugar bowl and he had a big 12 crew in that gun. And the big 12 crew had been working in a league where there was a lot of that kind of pace and a lot of that going on. And he came back and affected change for us before the following season about how we needed to emulate more of the mechanics that the big 12 was using at that point in time so that his team could go faster. And so now over time, we have four or five, six teams that do that. We're much more accustomed to it. But in the beginning, that was not an easy thing to do. We were not used to that. And it took a bowl game with another conference for him to come back and sell it. And, and that boat, I mean, it sounds as if the league listened. Is that a, is that a fair assessment? Oh, yeah. We, we, we're continuously evolving. We have to listen. But the goal was to be more consistent across the country. And, you know, each league just doesn't play the same brand of ball. And it's hard to officiate. Well, but we're learning that as we go. So now, matter of fact, I go back to the game, I told you that at the Rose Bowl, Oregon was the fastest team. Oh, yeah. At that point in time. Yeah. Those are Kelly's offense, I think. Yeah. Yeah, we were not accustomed to that. And it took some getting used to, but, but now in our league, we have, we have Tennessee and Ole Miss and Auburn and who, and God knows who else at run at that pace. Yeah. Well, I think runs at that pace. So we got, we got to get used to it because that's the game we're officiating. How, how much during your prep do you get into really understanding the type of offense that they run so you can then one be in position to make the call, but also understand the nuances of what's going on. So, so you're allowed to, what's this way of phrasing this? So you're, you're accustomed to what's happening. So you're, you're letting the fair things happen is a better way of phrasing that maybe. Very much. That's very much a week to week exercise on Friday night in the meetings, these, these guys will go over running game tendencies, passing game tendencies and special team tendencies, because each team is going to do something different and they will try to speculate at the time what that team is going to actually do against their opponent. Of course, we don't have that information. We don't have the game plan, but it's, that is very much part of the week of preparation is trying to prepare for what each team's tendencies are. Oh, that's great. That's great. I, and I just want to do a quick diversion here because we did talk about fans. And, and I know that, you know, fans, when they think of referees, they generally have one question. And if you don't mind, if you could just give us your home address, phone number, I think that would be great. If we could just let the internet know that. Yeah, it's funny that you asked that because when the game I was telling you about after that game, I had my telephone monitored by the FBI for 30 days. Because of the death threats that were coming in. Oh, man. That's for that time. So this is that LSU game you're talking about? Yeah, they can. Oh, my gosh. They want to find me for sure. Well, Blake, listen, I really appreciate your time and your candor with all this. This has been a really good time. I'd love to do it again if you've ever got the time because it's, it's been really fun chatting with you. Just out of curiosity, do you have, because people are going to ask, do you have any Saban stories you'd like to share? Love Saban, actually. Coach Saban is a, is not what his. Per persona. Reputation is. Yeah, okay. To be honest with you, Coach Saban has a standard and he expects his team to play at that standard and he also expects his, your officials to officiate at his standard. And he was particularly kind of veterans. He likes veterans. But the way I would set this up is the, the bigger the game was for Coach Saban, the easier it was to work. What do you attribute that to? It goes back again when he's baiting you 50 to nothing, he's expecting you not to let him. Right. He's expecting his team not to let him. Therefore, he was always harder to work for in those games than he was if it was, you know, 21 to 21 in overtime. But he has the utmost respect for me. Here's the other thing people don't know about Coach Saban. He was always a very objective critic. So Coach Saban understand that the game of college football is bigger than his game today. And that the role officiating plays and coaches play, players play, so on and so forth, he would be very objective. He'd say, guys, you all got this right. I didn't like it. Or, you know, you missed this and we need to look at it. But he was always one of our most objective pricks. And that is not easy to do in the middle of a football season with all the pressure that's going on and being endured at level by those tunes. But he, he never was unfair. I mean, I really have nothing but respect for him. I really believe this day that's part of the reason he's not coaching. The reason he, you don't think he's coaching because of the standard has changed or what do you mean exactly? I don't think that he liked the current situation in the game. And I don't think that he particularly wanted to coach that way. And I just think that he decided it was time for him to, you know, let it bounce fast. I didn't see last week's game day, but everybody says he was incredible in game day. That doesn't surprise me. Well, I think, I think what we saw on that game day is something that you're alluding to is maybe that reputation that that veneer maybe was down a little bit and you got to see a little bit more of the man, as opposed to the coach. And, you know, he even vocalized a couple times, you know, he was having a good time. He was visibly, visibly enjoying himself doing that. And I think for someone that has been in this job for so long and has such a, a high standard, but also a great reputation for being who he is to see that different side of him. I think it was really enjoyable for people. So people didn't know that. I think they didn't want to wear that. I've never, I've never had an irrational conversation with him. Now we disagree, but, you know, normally he'll take your explanation and he'll go on. And I was the kind of official where I would let you react to anything one time. I think everyone's, you know, got the, they've got the flexibility in my mind to react in any way you want to. I didn't hear how, what you said, or what you did that was our initial reaction to a call. I'm fine with that. It's after that when we've had the dialogue that I can, you know, separate him. And he and I never had an irrational word over that all the games I ever worked with him. Well, that's, that's wonderful. I mean, it's been really, like I said, Blake, this is awesome. I really appreciate you taking the time and, and chatting with us. And there you have it. We hope you enjoyed this. And be sure to like and subscribe to these videos. It really does help us cost you nothing and, and does a, a good service to us so we can continue to bring you this type of stuff. So thank you so much. And
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