I have a personal philosophy of not bashing officials consistently during sporting events. Some fans do it until the cows come home. I just want to see how teams play and the results that come from that. Unless there’s a really egregious error by a game’s officials, I typically prefer to stay out of the bashing.
However, the first half of Notre Dame’s game against Central Michigan made it clear a subpar crew was assigned to the game. I’m not particularly concerned about the calls the officials have made, but they definitely have taken too long to make penalty calls, conduct replay reviews and even determine where the ball is. That slows the game. While more time watching football is good in theory, the increase in dead time makes it excruciating.
The first half took more than an hour and a half to play, and there is little doubt the officials influenced that. Here are some tweets that agree: