First-year Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner Joe D’Antonio considers his conference to be “among the best, if not the best conference,” in the Football Championship Subdivision.
And he considers adding instant replay to help the on-field officials to be a “step in the right direction” for the league.
Eleven of the 12 schools in the conference will have instant replay available this season for all of their home games, conference and nonconference games, including the University of Maine.
The University of Rhode Island is the only exception and will add it for next season, according to D’Antonio.
“We gave the schools until next season to come into compliance,” he said.
James Madison, Elon and Richmond added the technology last season.
UMaine had a test run last Sunday during its final full scrimmage.
“It went well,” said CAA Supervisor of Officials Jim Maconaghy, who was on hand for it. “We wanted to have at least one replay session at each school before the season. We want to get the minor issues fixed by game time.”
Maconaghy said replay will be a “huge help” to the on-field officials and will give coaches even more confidence in officiating.
There will be three people in the press box who will be involved in the replay process.
There will be the replay official, a second official who will serve as a “communicator,” according to Maconaghy, and the third member of the team will be from the host school and will provide technical support.
The communicator will “sort through the available video,” Maconaghy said.
A booth in the press box has been established for the trio.
In addition, there will be two people with headsets on the field, one at each 20-yard line, and they will serve as messengers between the replay official in the press box and the referee.
Will Biberstein, UMaine’s senior associate athletic director for internal operations, said the university will foot the bill for the replay official, the communicator, the technician and the two messengers on the field for its five home games.
He said the CAA will assign the replay official and the communicator while UMaine will supply the technician and the two messengers.
“It will probably cost us less than $1,000 per game depending upon travel, but to be able to have support for the officials to help them make the right call is well worth it,” said Biberstein, who called Sunday’s session with Maconaghy valuable.
“It was a great test run for our crew so that everyone could get familiar with the system before our first game,” said Biberstein. “It’s always great to have Jim come up and check in to make sure we’re ready for the new season.”
During the games, the replay official in the booth will review every play, and if the official feels the previous play warrants a review, he will page the referee before the next play occurs.
The replay official, with help from the communicator and the technician, will then make a decision and relay it to the referee via the headsets.
Each coach will be able to challenge at least one call on the field per game.
If a coach calls a timeout and makes a successful challenge, he will receive another challenge and won’t be docked the timeout. If the challenge is unsuccessful, he can’t make another challenge and will lose the time-out used to make the challenge.
Two challenges will be the maximum.
The league is providing all of the equipment and hardware for the replay system other than the cameras. There will be at least five cameras involved.
“There will be a high end zone camera, a low end zone camera, one in the press box at the 50-yard line and cameras along each goal line,” said Maconaghy.
Biberstein said if the game is being televised, they will use the feeds from the television network’s cameras. If it isn’t, they will use “our own in-house cameras.”
The replay official and the head coaches are the only ones who can stop the game to generate a review.
Reviewable plays will include plays along the sidelines or the goal lines, fumbles, tackles, interceptions and targeting.
Targeting involves crouching and hitting an opponent with an upward thrust, forcibly propelling into a player to hit them in the head, contact above the shoulder on a defenseless player or hitting with the crown of the helmet.
Targeting is a 15-yard penalty and an automatic ejection.
UMaine will play its first home game at noon Saturday, Sept. 24, against James Madison University.