College football to consider neutral replay system for CFP games: report

College football officials will discuss implementing a neutral replay system for playoff and postseason games at the College Football Officiating meeting this week, according to CBS Sports.
The plan would include installing two people who are not affiliated with any NCAA conference in charge of reviewing plays for all College Football Playoff games.
And in future, it could expand to having unaffiliated officials oversee calls during bowl games and some non-conference games early in the season, as well.
A similar system is used in the NFL, which employs neutral officials to assess replay situations live during games. The on-field referee communicates directly with those officials, who oversee games from a central office in New York.
But in college football, officiating crews are still designated by their specific conferences, with an SEC crew assigned to judge this year’s national championship game between Ohio State and Notre Dame.
Implementing a system overseen by neutral officials would help overturn a perception around the sport that conference-aligned officials may be biased in how they call football games.
Even though there appears to be a push to involve neutral replay officials at the collegiate level, right now that interest is solely confined to postseason games.
CBS reports that bringing such a system to the regular season is still a “heavy lift.”
But if the system is seen to work in the College Football Playoff or other postseason games, a consensus could emerge that it should be implemented in the regular season in the future.
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