OOPS: Big Ten may have made a very costly mistake:

Did the Big Ten make a $4.5 million mistake by allowing an officiating crew that was facing a suspension this weekend to work last Saturday's Illinois-Ohio State game?

As I reported last week, a source told me the conference plans to suspend the crew that officiated the Nov. 3 Purdue-Penn State game based on a review of its work in that game. That same crew worked one of the biggest Big Ten games of the year last weekend in Columbus.

Incredible.

Why would the Big Ten assign the crew -- a few of whom could be fired for their work in the Purdue-Penn State game -- to a game of this importance?

Tom Dienhart of the Sporting News makes the point that "perception matters more than reality" and that the conference should not have used this team of officials for such an important game. I can't really disagree, but it also doesn't seem that these officials did anything questionable that cost OSU the game. (Buckeye fans might have a different opinion, of course...)

This is worth pointing out and should be taken as a lesson learned by avoiding what could have been quite a mess if this crew messed up and it then came out that they were already being investigated for earlier issues. Now that would have been a "very costly mistake."

It didn't happen, though, so let's not get too worked up about it.