First, a quick ode to A.J. Green, the best amateur receiver in America and the rare player for whom the box score can do no justice whatsoever:

Now, to the business at hand: Everyone has spent the last two days ripping uptight SEC officials for the celebration penalty that followed that touchdown and helped set up LSU in great position for the winning points, even if the Tigers had ultimately kicked a field goal instead of busting free for a dramatic touchdown of their own to overshadow Green's acrobatics. I mean quite literally everyone, from those irresponsible bloggers to indignant mainstream barkers to sober insiders to yours truly ... and, as of this afternoon, the head of SEC officials:

The excessive celebration penalty against Georgia's A.J. Green late in Saturday's game with LSU should not have been called, the SEC supervisor of officials has told CBSSports.com.

Rogers Redding, the SEC supervisor of officials, said Monday that after reviewing video of the play, "I've concluded that it was one that we probably should have let go."
"We tell our guys not to go looking for this stuff but if it's right in your face, you have to call it," Redding said. "He (the SEC official) is beating himself up pretty bad over this one."

So there you go: The man is sorry, Georgia. Hugs?

Not that Redding didn't recall the subsequent celebration on Charles Scott following his game-winning touchdown, which had "make-up call" written all over it, or the earlier unsportsmanlike call on Georgia's Orson Charles on key a reception inside the Tiger 10-yard line in the third quarter -- in fact, Redding explicitly stood behind them both. From where I sit, the only way to justify the call against Scott's "celebration" is as a make-up call, because you can't rightly throw a flag on Green for nothing on one end and not throw it for roughly equivalent nothing on the other, and the fact that LSU's subsequent kickoff also came from its own 15-yard line, just like Georgia's following the penalty on Green, should have offset the first bogus call and quieted the Bulldogs' complaints. It didn't, of course, but it should have.

This is one of the rare cases where two wrongs actually did make a right, even if the league can't officially absolve itself with that argument. Just as long as "an eye for an eye" doesn't become the standard operating procedure -- we don't need hands chopped off after drops in front 80,000 or anything -- I'm willing to file this snafu under "resolved."