The Tribe quarterback rolls to the right. He looks for the pass. His arm’s moving — and he’s hit! The ball’s on the ground. An opposing lineman scoops it up.
Was it a forward pass? A fumble? A confused mess? For College of William and Mary sports fans, it’s likely to be the latter, because College officials don’t put unfavorable replays up on the big screen. Don’t look for any video unfriendly to Tribe players, either. You won’t find it. But why?
Sure, there’s something to be said for good PR, but we doubt that refusing to put up video on questionable or unfavorable plays saves fans from too much pain or keeps them from heading back to Swem. If anything, sending all footage — good, bad or otherwise — to the screen will get folks even more into the game. That’s the purpose of replays, a feature added at Zable Stadium this season. This is the College after all, and since our fans hardly warrant the label “rabid,” we support anything that will rile them up a bit. Airing the replay that shows what the ref got wrong won’t incite a riot, exciting as it is to imagine, but at least it might inspire some passion.
So to the folks up in the booth: Give us our replays, all of them. This isn’t a PR campaign. It’s football, and we want to get angry.