Who will officiate Saturday's game?

A clarification of who will officiate the UCLA-BYU game this Saturday.

In a Tuesday blog in this space, you read the following:

“BYU’s athletic department learned late Monday afternoon, Saturday’s game with the Bruins will not be a split crew, a feature being worked on by the MWC, WAC, Conference USA and Big 12 (future). Saturday’s game will be officiated by a MWC crew.”

I was informed by a reader that the following “clarification” appeared in a KSL.com blog, by another seasoned and respected reporter and colleague:

“I can say with 100% confidence that this weekend’s crew will, in actuality, be a “split crew.” As I posted last night, the crew assignment for Saturday’s BYU-UCLA game consists of three officials hired originally by the MWC (who worked MWC games last season), and four officials hired originally by the WAC (who worked WAC games last season).

“However, as outlined in this blog last week, the “conference designation” is essentially now obsolete, since the MWC has entered into the officiating consortium that includes officials from the MWC, WAC and Big 12 this season. So, to restate, saying an “MWC” crew will work Saturday’s game is somewhat misleading, since the league’s new plan is designed to eliminate any such labels. The goal is a regional/national network of officials not linked solely to any one league.”

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It might be splitting hairs. This consortium is the goal of the league as it moves forward to not label officiating from one conference or another.

According to BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe Tuesday afternoon, he was informed by Ken Rivera, the supervisor of Mountain West Conference officiating that the crew doing the UCLA-BYU game would be a MWC crew. Now, it might be a matter of semantics for some to sift through.

Some college officials I know, like Timpanogos baseball coach Kim Nelson, has done many MWC games and WAC games. But he is considered a MWC official over the years. While it may be that this crew might have officials who have done both conferences, and somehow “originated” in one or the other (MWC or WAC), it basically is MWC officiating crew — even if somebody wants to identify it as a split crew to somehow placate some observers or elevate an ideology and carry forward a plan and goal in the works.

Holmoe: “This is not a split crew.”

Regardless of what we want to call this crew, one thing we can be certain of on Saturday: Anybody spiking or throwing the ball after a TD will get the heck flagged out of them.

And if one team or the other wins this game, it should have nothing to do with the guys in stripes. But, having said that, people do tend to care what ties they have. One thing we do know and can say with 100 percent assurance, no Pac-10 officiating crews will be in this time zone.