Why Michigan game showed ‘instant’ replay is more trouble than it’s worth

I don’t want artificial intelligence in my email.

In fact, I don’t want it anywhere.

I don’t want the internet connected to my refrigerator, or to my thermostat, or to my reading glasses. I don’t want a digital washing machine, or a digital dryer, or a digital shower. I want to go all analog, all the time.

I’m ready to bring back CDs and books and video stores. I’m ready to bring back cameras with lens caps and newspapers that smear your fingers.

And above all, I’m ready to bring back games officiated entirely by humans, without instant replay.

It took me a while to come around on that last one. For far too long, I couldn’t understand why we shouldn’t use all the advancements of modern technology to make sure every foul and every catch and every toe on the out-of-bounds line was called correctly. I accused everyone who resisted of being a Luddite.

But the Luddites were right.

Instant replay is a mess. It has been for years. It was supposed to right obvious wrongs, and to be fair, it usually does. But at what cost?

It ruins big moments. It makes fun games slow to a miserable crawl. It encourages indecisive officiating, which only leads to more interminable reviews. And on nights like Saturday in Michigan?

It doesn’t just turn a win into a loss. It takes a clear picture and makes it fuzzy. It creates uncertainty out of thin air. And it makes us suspect that even with a dozen angles available from a dozen cameras, those calling the shots still see only what they want to see.

By now, you’ve probably know all about the closing seconds of Michigan’s ridiculous, widely disputed 13-12 victory over Western Michigan last week. The Wolverines attempted a Hail Mary pass on what looked like the final play, it fell incomplete with what looked like no time on the clock, but a curious review process led to a second being placed back on the clock.

The second long pass was caught for a touchdown, and one of the biggest college football upsets of the decade was avoided.

Since then, the Big Ten has offered unconvincing explanations for its officiating decisions, mainly revolving around the idea that the clock that viewers see on their TV screens is not the real clock. There have been no explanations, however, about why the TV clock and the real clock were not synced properly.

So what we’re left with is a bunch of conspiracy theories, even while the NCAA says there’s nothing that can be done.

But much like 12 years ago, when one of the most notorious replay rulings in NFL history deprived the Dallas Cowboys’ Dez Bryant of a touchdown catch in a playoff game in Green Bay, the debate isn’t just about whether the review got the play right.

It’s about whether the play even needed to be reviewed in the first place.

And if we’re going down that path, the natural next step is asking if any play needs to be reviewed anymore. Can’t we just go back to the old days, when referees and linesmen and umpires messed up and everybody moved on?

This is where I must concede that some implementations of replay have been unquestionably good. The Hawk-Eye technology used in tennis is amazing. The automated balls and strikes (ABS) challenge system in Major League Baseball has been a net positive as well. In both of those cases, the verdict comes quickly, and decisively, and there are no gray areas to navigate.

But most calls aren’t like that. Most calls still require officials to use their judgment, whether that judgment comes in real time, or with the aid of slow-motion, frame-by-frame replays. And more often than not, giving them the benefit of the latter just doesn’t seem worth it.

How many times can an NBA crew head to the scorer’s table to look at the monitor during the final two minutes of a game? It’s preposterous, and fans hate it. They hate not being able to cheer for a touchdown, or a World Cup goal, because they have to wait for the replay official to weigh in first.

And they hate that the delay doesn’t even guarantee the call will be right.

So let’s give analog a chance again. There are plenty of other reasons for it, and I’d like to take the time to detail them all.

But my VHS rental is overdue.

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This article originally published at Why Michigan game showed ‘instant’ replay is more trouble than it’s worth.

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