CHICAGO -- Penn State coach Joe Paterno did not single-handedly force the Big Ten to adopt instant replay. Still, he deserves some of the credit. After mulling it for more than a decade without taking action, the league's coaches, referees and athletic directors overwhelmingly approved an instant-replay system this past off-season. The setup was unvieled Wednesday at the Big Ten's football media day. Instant replay will be used this fall on an experimental basis in all 44 Big Ten games. It also will be used in some non-conference matchups, including Penn State's home games against Akron and Central Florida. Some say the momentum shift toward instant replay began the day in September 2002 when Paterno chased referee Dick Honig after an overtime loss against Iowa. Yesterday, Paterno and league officials tried to downplay that notion. "It's probably not just my unhappiness with a couple of tough calls," Paterno said. "I think there's some other things that went on that probably influenced those guys, too." "You can't look at any one play or any one season as being the driving force for instant replay," said Mark Rudner, the Big Ten's associate commissioner for television administration. However, Rudner admitted that support for replay grew after the conference granted Penn State's request for a comprehensive review of game officiating. The Big Ten's summit on officiating was held in March 2003. Two months later, plans for an instant replay system were in the works. The NCAA's football rules committee gave its approval in February. "I think it's great," Illinois coach Ron Turner said. "If you have a chance to get it right, then why not get it right?" Runder said the system will cost about $100,000 per season. It will use ABC-TV and ESPN game broadcast feeds, so the only equipment the league needed to buy were monitors and digital video recorders. Coaches will not be able to challenge play calls. That job is left to a "technical advisor" stationed in the press box. When he sees a suspect call, the advisor will stop play and look at the broadcast television replay. If the network does not show a replay, the advisor can review the play with a digital video recorder -- the same TiVo system available for home use. For the play to be changed, the advisor must have indisputable video evidence that there was an error. Replay can be used to determine whether or not a player was inbounds, whether he had possession of the ball. It can be used to spot the ball and determine forward progress, or to resolve questions about the game or play clocks. It will not be used for so-called "hard physical fouls," such as roughing the passer or false starts. "Our bottom line is justice," Big Ten coordinator of officials David Parry said. "Let's get it right." As an example of an error that could be undone by replay, Parry cited a play in last year's Penn State-Minnesota game. The Nittany Lions, trailing by three points, had the ball on the 11-yard line with six seconds left in the second quarter. Gophers linebacker Terrance Campbell snatched at a wobbly pass as he crashed to the turf. The line judge immediately ruled the play an incompletion. But he was overruled by the umpire, who gave Campbell an interception. "In the video replay, you can clearly see it was a trap," Parry said. After the season, the NCAA will review the Big Ten's replay experiment. If no major problems are found, it's likely the system will be approved for use nationwide. "Other conferences around the country are watching us carefully," Parry said. "My guess is they want it to be successful."

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---