Mullen: 'It's embarrassing that they blew that call'

Dan Mullen sharply criticized Southeastern Conference officiating in his weekly Sunday teleconference with reporters today. The Mississippi State coach called for consistency on kickoff offsides calls in his postgame remarks Saturday night. Also, what he thought about another critical call: A fourth-quarter interception return for a touchdown by Florida's Dustin Doe in which MSU thought it stripped the ball from Doe at the 1 yard line and recovered the fumble in the end zone. Doe's 23-yard return with 8:25 to play gave Florida a 29-13 lead in a game it went on to win 29-19. ESPN's replays appeared to show the ball coming free before the goal line. In full, Mullen's response:"We got a chance to watch that. I watched it all night on TV replays last night as well. Obviously, if you look at a call — in the course of a game, obviously, you're really disappointed with inconsistent calls in the game like offsides on a kickoff. Very, very inconsistent call with the three or four offsides that they were off on their kickoffs. The exact same thing that we do, we get called for it. I thought that was a big play in the game, where we would have had them pinned inside the five yard line. That being said, you just hope you get some consistency out of your officials. Whether it's a good call or a bad call, I don't know. It's a very inconsistent call, and that's disappointing. But that's in live speed of the game playing. To me, I'm going to find out who that video replay was. I've seen it over and over, views of the ball being out of his hand before he crossed the goal line. That's twice that a SEC replay official - I don't know why we even have replay right now in the Southeastern Conference if they are not going to utilize it. That's twice that they've blown calls on the replay with our games resulting in big plays and I think that's unexcusable for that official. I mean, I hope he is severely punished, if (he) ever works another SEC game again, because I think it is completely unacceptable. I can understand making a bad call in a live speed on a game like the offsides call. There's no excuse for a guy that has the amount of time to replay the video to make sure they get the call right. That's why we do instant replay. And I think it's embarrassing that they blew that call. I've seen the still shots with the ball out of his hand. So I don't think that's acceptable on a guy that is not watching it in live speed, has the ability to watch all the different angles." Chris Talbott of the Associated Press followed up and asked if he thought SEC officials had struggled overall or in just a few instances. Officiating, it seems, has been the talk of the SEC in recent weeks. Again, Mullen in full: "Well, you know, like I said: The bang-bang calls, haveing officials make a call that is in a live game speed, they're going to make some, they're going to miss some. All you hope for is consistency. The one that I'm disappointed in is, obviously, the replay, because that's twice now that the replay official has blown a call in one of our games. And I just don't see how that's acceptable. Someone that can look at a video tape over and over again and miss a call. You can understand a guy that has one one-hundredths of a second to make a call or a decision, with the athletes in the SEC, the speed that's going, but in a replay, that should never happen." The SEC Rocks!