The phrase "pick-on" is sort of beta, but it's not crazy to believe there's a bias against Miami.
If you're a referee that is between about 50 and 65 years old, you grew up in in an era where the Hurricanes turned college football on its ear in the early '80s—which would've had you anywhere from 10 to 25 years old.
Unless you hailed from South Florida and appreciated what The U was doing, you most-likely were a Midwestern, a Southern or a Yankee who absolutely thought UM were a bunch of brash thugs and you wanted no part of that brand of football.
Terry Porter was an Oklahoma native and a longtime Big 12 referee. If there's any indication he was a Sooners fan, he saw the Hurricanes beat the brakes off Oklahoma three times in a row in the '80s—depriving them of a title in 1987, as well with that Orange Bowl victory.
Go look up some videos of former NBA ref Tim Donaghy and not just the cheating escapades he went down for—he now openly talks about not liking players; attributing technicals to guys like Allen Iverson or Rasheed Wallace for no reason (and laughing about it with other refs as they had wagers on this kind of stuff.)
I challenge any rival or critic to go back and watch footage of that Don Chaney "fumble" against Georgia Tech—how the official closest the the ball is starting to signal Chaney was down, before the line judge sprints from across the field to call fumble, even though he had the worse angle.
Same to be said for how these mooks handled safety calls against Clemson and Florida State; the commentators coming back in the third quarter in the Noles' broadcast to say headquarters was supposed to give them a post-halftime answer about why it wasn't a safety of Travis, but they no-showed and just blew it off, much to the commentators' surprise.
There's also the old school ACC refs who never liked Miami joining their conference that have always called it rather unfair against the Canes.
In this Louisville match-up, you have the tenth-ranked Cardinals set to play the fourth-ranked Seminoles—two Top 10 teams in the ACC title game, which will lead to a lot of chatter about how they got it right with the "two best teams" instead of divisions—as it would look bad if the best team in the Coastal was now and unranked North Carolina team, after losing last week.
There was no benefit to the ACC of Miami beating Louisville and the Brohm feel-good story created over there—and it was created as the Cards didn't have to play Florida State, Clemson or North Carolina this year, while Miami got all three.
It's a racket... and before any "leave the conference" chatter, again, anyone things the Big Ten or SEC zebras are gonna be any kinder to Miami? Please.
In the words of Jimmy Johnson, take it out of the ref's hands. Miami should've been up 38-13 against Georgia Tech, not 20-17, where a bogus fumble could've been a problem. Tyler Van Yips gave that game away when he couldn't read a zone defense; the Canes with FIVE turnovers that night to the Yellow Jackets' TWO.
