Biased Officiating?

[IndayArtHauz]

We do too much stupid **** that needs cleanup.

What's incomprehensible is how few penalties our opponents get called for, specifically against us.

This. We need to clean ourselves up, but officials apparently need to see an arm ripped off for holding to be called.

 

[404Usernamenotfound]

Great job. Have a question and not sure you can do it. But can you look at the penalties and break them down in offense versus defense. Then break them down what penalties they are?

To me some penalties can get cleaned up but curious what they are. Holding vs false starts. Also like the Dylan day penalty to me for targeting is not his fault and more based on other player lowering his head.

Thanks. Unfortunately, no i can not as the only data I can find online is how many penalties + how many yards. I havent found a website that breaks it down further than that.

 

[Suhrthing]

The egregious errors seem fairly one-sided as well: Chamar’s TD getting blown dead, Bain’s safety. The two missed safeties last year etc.

We’ll be paying off the Duke lateral return for a lifetime it seems.

 

[brcane1]

Like most on here, I'm sick of the one-sided officiating we see. I recall a few years back when we had 2 first round DE (phillips and greg) and didn’t get a hold call all year (or something like that). This past Saturday, we saw some very obvious missed calls. The intentional grounding that wasn’t called. The hold on bain that would have been a safety. The illegal motion that wasn’t called for them. No holding calls against their oline. I could go on.

I decided to look at the stats. It is as you would expect.

Out of 136 teams

Miami is 123rd in Penalties Per Game, with 8.5

Miami is 104th in Penalty yards per game, with 66

Miami Opponents are 130th in penalties per game

Miami Opponents are 133rd in penalty yards per game.


Miami averages ~8.5 penalties (66 yards) per game—among the top ~10% most penalized teams. In contrast, their opponents average only ~3.8 penalties (27.5 yards)—among the bottom ~5% least penalized.

View attachment 338596

Penalty Differentials Across All Teams​

• Differential Penalties per Game= Own Penalties - Opponent Penalties
  • League Mean: 0.02
  • League Median: 0.0
  • League Std Dev: 1.87
• Differential Yards per Game= Own Yards - Opponent Yards
  • League Mean: 0.14
  • League Median: -0.25
  • League Std Dev: 18.38

Miami's differentials:

Metric	Miami	Opponent	Differential (Mia–Op)	National “Neutral” Range	Result
Penalties per game	8.5	3.8	+4.7	~0 (avg diff ±1)	Enormous gap — one of the largest in FBS
Penalty yards per game	66.0	27.5	+38.5	~0 (avg diff ±10)	Massive discrepancy — among bottom 3 teams nationally

Miami commits nearly 2.2× as many penalties and incurs 2.4× as many yards in penalties compared to their opponents.

Comparison with Peers​

Team	Penalties (PG)	Opp Penalties (PG)	Net Gap	Bias Direction
Miami	8.5	3.8	+4.7	Against
Florida St	4.8	7.5	-2.7	In Favor
Georgia	5.0	6.5	-1.5	Slight Favor
Ohio St	4.3	4.3	0.0	Neutral
Texas	8.8	4.8	+4.0	Against
Michigan	4.0	3.0	+1.0	Slight Against

Miami’s differential (+4.7) is the largest gap among these major programs.

Here’s the scatter plot — each point represents a team’s average penalty yards per game versus their opponents’ average.

The dashed line indicates perfect parity (equal calls both ways).
Miami (in red) sits far below that line — a clear visual outlier showing that their opponents are penalized far less despite Miami drawing far more flags

View attachment 338599


SUMMARY - **** THESE REFS
SUMMARY 2 - As they say. the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Until UM staff and AD start lodging formal complaints, maybe even public complaints, it wont change. Perhaps Mario with his tough guy persona, refuses to acknowledge this or allow it to be used as an excuse, but it will cost us. I respect the players for not constantly flopping or trying to draw a penalty, but sometimes they need to speak up. It is better to complain now after a win, then do it after a loss.

Disclaimer: I used AI to help analyze the data. All data is from www.teamrankings.com


EDIT:
as per @TriStarCane , he asked about the opponents baseline agaisnt other teams. Here you go (fyi its ugly)

All 4 of our FBS opponents had penalty yards against us below their season average (whether you include their game agasint Miami or not)

The proability of this, on its face is 6.25%
Assuming independence across the four games, the joint probability that all four teams had below-average penalty yards is:
P(all four below average)=0.5×0.5×0.5×0.5=0.0625

However, if you account for the standard deviation, it is 0.0000571%!!!!!!

Opponent	Penalty Yards	Season Avg (μ) (excludes miami)	Season Std Dev (σ)	Comparison to Avg	Probability (Below Avg)
ND	15	53.75	39.21	Below	0.1611
USF	15	65.5	13.43	Below	0.0001
UF	20	80.33	19.62	Below	0.0011
FSU	45	49.33	9.50	Below	0.3228

P(all four below average)=0.0011×0.3228×0.1611×0.0001≈0.000000571P

This is approximately 0.0000571% or 5.71 × 10⁻⁷.

If you control for game situation it gets more absurd, I started to pull the data after USF but have not updated.

Punchline looked to be that while we were penalized throughout, almost all of our opponents penalties occur when we are winning by a couple TDs+

 

[lucius superbus]

You think it’s frustrating now, in the 80’s (some of you may remember), then, like now, the Canes were heavily over served in the flag department. But then, the broadcast policy was to not name the player who committed the infraction (and also generally not showing replays of penalty plays from what I remember) so you’re watching a game there’s a massive holding call and you have no idea wtf just happened.

 

[drewm3i]

Send to Josh Pate--maybe even the Miami Ad's office.

 

[ncncanes]

Like most on here, I'm sick of the one-sided officiating we see. I recall a few years back when we had 2 first round DE (phillips and greg) and didn’t get a hold call all year (or something like that). This past Saturday, we saw some very obvious missed calls. The intentional grounding that wasn’t called. The hold on bain that would have been a safety. The illegal motion that wasn’t called for them. No holding calls against their oline. I could go on.

I decided to look at the stats. It is as you would expect.

Out of 136 teams

Miami is 123rd in Penalties Per Game, with 8.5

Miami is 104th in Penalty yards per game, with 66

Miami Opponents are 130th in penalties per game

Miami Opponents are 133rd in penalty yards per game.


Miami averages ~8.5 penalties (66 yards) per game—among the top ~10% most penalized teams. In contrast, their opponents average only ~3.8 penalties (27.5 yards)—among the bottom ~5% least penalized.

View attachment 338596

Penalty Differentials Across All Teams​

• Differential Penalties per Game= Own Penalties - Opponent Penalties
  • League Mean: 0.02
  • League Median: 0.0
  • League Std Dev: 1.87
• Differential Yards per Game= Own Yards - Opponent Yards
  • League Mean: 0.14
  • League Median: -0.25
  • League Std Dev: 18.38

Miami's differentials:

Metric	Miami	Opponent	Differential (Mia–Op)	National “Neutral” Range	Result
Penalties per game	8.5	3.8	+4.7	~0 (avg diff ±1)	Enormous gap — one of the largest in FBS
Penalty yards per game	66.0	27.5	+38.5	~0 (avg diff ±10)	Massive discrepancy — among bottom 3 teams nationally

Miami commits nearly 2.2× as many penalties and incurs 2.4× as many yards in penalties compared to their opponents.

Comparison with Peers​

Team	Penalties (PG)	Opp Penalties (PG)	Net Gap	Bias Direction
Miami	8.5	3.8	+4.7	Against
Florida St	4.8	7.5	-2.7	In Favor
Georgia	5.0	6.5	-1.5	Slight Favor
Ohio St	4.3	4.3	0.0	Neutral
Texas	8.8	4.8	+4.0	Against
Michigan	4.0	3.0	+1.0	Slight Against

Miami’s differential (+4.7) is the largest gap among these major programs.

Here’s the scatter plot — each point represents a team’s average penalty yards per game versus their opponents’ average.

The dashed line indicates perfect parity (equal calls both ways).
Miami (in red) sits far below that line — a clear visual outlier showing that their opponents are penalized far less despite Miami drawing far more flags

View attachment 338599


SUMMARY - **** THESE REFS
SUMMARY 2 - As they say. the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Until UM staff and AD start lodging formal complaints, maybe even public complaints, it wont change. Perhaps Mario with his tough guy persona, refuses to acknowledge this or allow it to be used as an excuse, but it will cost us. I respect the players for not constantly flopping or trying to draw a penalty, but sometimes they need to speak up. It is better to complain now after a win, then do it after a loss.

Disclaimer: I used AI to help analyze the data. All data is from www.teamrankings.com


EDIT:
as per @TriStarCane , he asked about the opponents baseline agaisnt other teams. Here you go (fyi its ugly)

All 4 of our FBS opponents had penalty yards against us below their season average (whether you include their game agasint Miami or not)

The proability of this, on its face is 6.25%
Assuming independence across the four games, the joint probability that all four teams had below-average penalty yards is:
P(all four below average)=0.5×0.5×0.5×0.5=0.0625

However, if you account for the standard deviation, it is 0.0000571%!!!!!!

Opponent	Penalty Yards	Season Avg (μ) (excludes miami)	Season Std Dev (σ)	Comparison to Avg	Probability (Below Avg)
ND	15	53.75	39.21	Below	0.1611
USF	15	65.5	13.43	Below	0.0001
UF	20	80.33	19.62	Below	0.0011
FSU	45	49.33	9.50	Below	0.3228

P(all four below average)=0.0011×0.3228×0.1611×0.0001≈0.000000571P

This is approximately 0.0000571% or 5.71 × 10⁻⁷.

So first impressive work

However I am willing to bet the FARM that Miami has registered the compliant

Most of the calls against Miami ..... look legit

Granted - that hold in the end zone was blatant

 

[404Usernamenotfound]

So first impressive work

However I am willing to bet the FARM that Miami has registered the compliant

Most of the calls against Miami ..... look legit

Granted - that hold in the end zone was blatant

My issue is not that the calls against Miami are not legitimate. Most of them are.

The issue the is disparity between calls.

 

[BODESLAM]

PHU@K THE DIGITS…HANG ‘EM ALL…********

 

[RF-4CCane]

I’d like to see an example of a 30 yard pass downfield, in the field of play, called grounding because the WR broke off his route.

If someone can show this called on Clemson, UNC, FSU by ACC officials, in the past 5 years, I would like to see it.

 

[mirvin88]

So first impressive work

However I am willing to bet the FARM that Miami has registered the compliant

Most of the calls against Miami ..... look legit

Granted - that hold in the end zone was blatant

It’s not really about whether ours are legitimate or not. The odds that every team is under penalized for their average when playing us is the point to take away.

 

[mirvin88]

I’d like to see an example of a 30 yard pass downfield, in the field of play, called grounding because the WR broke off his route.

If someone can show this called on Clemson, UNC, FSU by ACC officials, in the past 5 years, I would like to see it.

Yes I don’t agree with this. That isn’t called for a WR/QB miscommunication. If it is/has it must be extremely rare.

 

[Silentobserver]

Good analysis, but the one thing I would add from your data is the conference affiliation of the refs from each game each team plays. As I mentioned in the other thread, a huge problem that has led to officiating issues is that officiating is not standardized nationally (see the Josh Pate videos). Each conference manages, trains, and thus implements their own officiating standards. This has led to uneven officiating across the country and across conference and games. What constitutes holding in the Big 10 is now not the same as in the SEC and the ACC, etc. So I would break the analysis down further to attempt to identify if there are patterns among particular conferences.

Also, coaches face extreme penalties for public complaints of officiating. It is not limited to fines; they can be suspended or further sanctioned. We do know that Miami has complained directly to the ACC before, per the rules.

One thing to add all college refs (especially in the P4) are graded and instructed by NFL refs. These reports are sent to both the individual ref and the conference.

These reports score every play and give detail instruction on what the ref did well or wrong, and what they should be looking at and why.

Refs are also given game film of every team they officiate (multiple games and from multiple angles).

If a ref scores poorly on their reports they do get demoted to lower conferences and games.

 

[Suhrthing]

Yes I don’t agree with this. That isn’t called for a WR/QB miscommunication. If it is/has it must be extremely rare.

IIRC Beck wasn’t even being pressured really…

 

[QuattroCane]

Most of the officials & brass regulating officials grew up loving football in 80’s.

During said years if you lived south of Jupiter you were a die hard Cane or a Retàrd. Anywhere else on Earth you despised everything about Miami’s rise to prominence & felt they were the literal depiction of the degradation of all that was good ( or the devil incarnate ).

Now those same kids and young adults who have harbored those feelings for decades are running the show across America.


View attachment 338602View attachment 338603View attachment 338604

Exactly. I’ve said this numerous times. We are deeply hated by a lot of people for beating the **** out of their team back in the day. If you don’t think there’s inherent bias in a lot of folks then you either naive or disingenuous.

 

[flips]

Missed this one live. Was the 3rd & 5 around 13:47 in second quarter. Looked like once Mesidor got to the flat Jakobe was trying to get deeper to bracket Robinson. #13 boxed him out then just grabbed him with both hands. Ridiculous

 

[HEMICANE]

Good analysis, but the one thing I would add from your data is the conference affiliation of the refs from each game each team plays. As I mentioned in the other thread, a huge problem that has led to officiating issues is that officiating is not standardized nationally (see the Josh Pate videos). Each conference manages, trains, and thus implements their own officiating standards. This has led to uneven officiating across the country and across conference and games. What constitutes holding in the Big 10 is now not the same as in the SEC and the ACC, etc. So I would break the analysis down further to attempt to identify if there are patterns among particular conferences.

Also, coaches face extreme penalties for public complaints of officiating. It is not limited to fines; they can be suspended or further sanctioned. We do know that Miami has complained directly to the ACC before, per the rules.

During the Uif game, I knew the officials were from the SEC so, when Brockermeyer was getting all of those snap infraction penalties, I said he must be doing something with the ball like readjusting his grip (rain) or something they don't allow because he was never flagged in our prior games and he wasn't flagged in the fsu game either.

 

[6th Ring is Near]

I’d like to see an example of a 30 yard pass downfield, in the field of play, called grounding because the WR broke off his route.

If someone can show this called on Clemson, UNC, FSU by ACC officials, in the past 5 years, I would like to see it.

Ive seen it happen before, but you are right it is rare.
I think on that play it was clear that there was miscommunication and not Beck trying to avoid a sack and should be considered when deciding to pick up a flag or not.

 

[6th Ring is Near]

Does anyone know how many holding penalties our opponents have been called for this season total by their OL?
It can't be that many because I can barely remember any and not really considering the Bethune game

 

[mr.h]

This has been going on since the 90’s