In recent weeks we've seen the Pacific-10 head of football officials, among others, acknowledge errors by a conference crew in a marquee game.

Meanwhile, the Southeastern Conference has played out as almost a weekly soap opera in which it has been forced to take action against its crews for errors or its head coaches for blasting away at the officials.

Nor are these two prestigious, well-heeled conferences alone. And we're just past the halfway point in the regular season.

Whether officiating mistakes are more prevalent this season or just more high profile is debatable, but what is obvious is that it is long past time that, with all that is riding on their games, colleges should take a real look at streamlining and centralizing officiating.

For too long conferences have tightly held on to officiating for the sake of control rather than looking at the big picture. A national picture, for example, in which officials are evaluated and assigned by a central body. One that would establish and demand the same standards no matter where the games are played or in which conference.

To date the perception is that conferences have been more concerned with preserving their own authority than improving quality. Though they all ostensibly work from the same rule book, it has been no secret that some conferences interpret passages of what is in there with different degrees of flexibility. What might be holding in, say, the Big Ten can be applied to a different standard in, perhaps, the Pac-10 and so on.

With the millions of dollars riding on who gets into the Bowl Championship Series — and who doesn't — conferences are increasingly having to defend themselves against charges that Team A gets the big calls because it is in the league's best interests to have it win and set up a bigger payday.

A national director of officials, on the other hand, would have a lot less vested interest in which teams go to the BCS or who is cashing the lucrative checks.

Remarkably we've seen some of the first baby steps toward unifying officiating come from the Western Athletic Conference, which is in its second season of joining forces with the Mountain West, Big 12 and Conference USA to operate so-called "hybrid" crews. Last year they mixed crews on an experimental basis.

This season they've expanded the concept to the point that the crew that worked last week's UH-Boise State game was one of them, including Hawai'i-based linesman George Gusman.

Controversy over officiating will always be with us but joining forces would be a concrete step toward improving standards and perception.