Officials from the major college football conferences did not cross the metaphorical picket line during the 2012 labor dispute between the NFL and its officials. Butch Dill / Getty Images
April 30, 2026Updated 6:31 pm EDT
If the NFL uses replacement referees this fall amid a labor dispute with game officials, the highest division of college football is not expected to lose officials or be impacted, a half-dozen college sports administrators and officials confirmed to The Athletic.
The expectation has long been that the NFL would use lower-division college officials or retired officials, as it did during the 2012 referee work stoppage. That dispute, which lasted into the season and drew widepsread backlash for mistakes like the “Fail Mary” that decided a primetime game between the Packers and Seahawks, largely featured officials from Division II and lower levels of football.
“I don’t anticipate it impacting where our guys work this fall,” one Football Bowl Subdivision conference official said.
While the NFL uses a single pool of unionized officials in the NFL Referees Association, college football officials are independent contractors split up between conferences. Some leagues, such as the SEC and the Sun Belt, partner together for an officiating pipeline and share resources. College Football Officiating (CFO), which is made up of conference commissioners and outgoing NCAA coordinator of officials Steve Shaw, works at the national level to create standard practices between the groups.
There is no college football officials union, but they work closely with NFL officials in training. High-level college officials do not want to cross a metaphorical picket line to work as replacement refs, just as they didn’t in 2012. As one former official put it, doing so would be a “career-killer.”
The Athletic’s Mike Jones on Thursday confirmed that the NFL distributed crew assignments to its normal officials this week, a potential sign of progress on a new agreement. Meanwhile, training for replacement officials is expected to begin soon in advance of replacement officials at minicamps and offseason practice sessions beginning June 1 if the league and the NFLRA have not reached a deal.
Apr 30, 2026
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