College football replays are getting way too complicated.

The Big Ten was the first conference to institute video reviews in college football. It was a by-product of so many more games being on TV, and the NFL having used replay for years to make sure crucial calls were right or they were overturned. So much money is at stake in pro football, teams don’t want to miss the playoffs on a bum call.

Now, colleges are making it more confusing in an attempt to avoid what happened at the Miami-Duke game last year. That seven-lateral touchdown run by the Hurricanes cost Duke a game it should have won, and national TV was watching on a Saturday night. So the ACC has spent more money than John Swofford will disclose to add one more step to his replay system, called collaborative.

Besides the replay crew at every stadium, the ACC will now be wired into the discussion by officials watching from the conference headquarters in Greensboro. They will be looking at four angles of the replay being shown simultaneously on four screens. If they see something, they will ask the officials in the replay booth if they are looking the same angle they are watching in Greensboro.

Only that will happen just in conference games. Non-conference games, such as Carolina’s opener against Georgia Saturday night in Atlanta, will have the same replay system as last year with the supposedly impartial Big Ten’s replay crew working that game. For what reason I am not exactly sure, since non-conference games are usually officiated on the field by refs from one of the leagues competing.

If you can figure all this out, let me know. It’s troubling that another system is being added on top, but not for every game. Doesn’t that mean the chances of getting the calls right in the collaborative system are higher? So what happened at Duke last year might happen when the collaborative system isn’t available.

How about this? Let’s add another official on the field and they can call the game, just like they did for more than a hundred years. As we now know, human error can be involved with either system.