PHOENIX -- Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott understands the importance of perception. So it doesn’t really matter whether he agrees with the prevailing opinion that the conference’s football officials are really some sort of unintentional comedy troupe.

For the record, he doesn’t -- “I definitely think there was a big perception gap between what gets reported and the reality,” Scott said at Pac-12 spring meetings last week -- but that perception clearly played a role in the recruitment of the NFL’s director of officiating, David Coleman, to become conference’s vice president of officiating.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how the Pac-12 stacks up against the officiating in other conferences -- quick, what conference has the best officials? -- but thanks to a steady stream of high-profile gaffes over the years, it’s easy to understand how its reputation was shaped. Improved replay technology and the ease in which videos can quickly be distributed have undoubtedly magnified those issues, but the long-term effect from better technology should be higher standards, especially in a conference that fancies itself a leader in innovation.

“I think [being an official is] one of the toughest jobs in the world,” Oregon coach Mark Helfrich said. “The athletes are faster and there are so many moving parts on a play. It’s hard to even follow where the ball is in a lot of these plays. All those things create just tough decisions in terms of timing for those guys.”

That’s all true, but it’s easy to have perspective in the offseason. In the heat of the moment? Not so much.

When the conference’s coordinator of officials, Tony Corrente, abruptly resigned in October, it allowed the conference to reexamine how it wanted to approach officiating in the future. From that introspection, it was determined a full-time employee -- which Corrente was not -- was needed. On top of that, it was important for that person to have experience developing and cultivating talent.

Coleman’s background made him the perfect candidate. At the NFL, a significant part of his job was to do just that: evaluate, recruit and develop officials.

“When we began to talk about the opportunity at the Pac-12, that experience really meshed with the need identified, not only with football but other sports,” Coleman said. “As VP of officiating, I’ll have responsibility of the football program, but contributing with the development of officials in other sports.”

Coleman, who will relocate from New York to be near the Pac-12 offices in San Francisco, won’t start in an official capacity until May 20, but he was in Phoenix last week to meet with coaches, athletic directors and conference officials. The visit was introductory in nature, but he made a point to share his overarching philosophies and lend an ear to concerns and priorities from the coaches.

Before going to work for the NFL, Coleman achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel during a 22-year career in the United States Army, worked in human resources and in various officiating roles.

The immediate feedback from coaches following their introduction to Coleman, not surprisingly, was overwhelmingly positive.

“His integrity, his life story. To have someone that was developing and training the officials for the NFL now doing it for us I think is a home run,” Arizona State coach Todd Graham said. “I applaud our commissioner and the conference for doing that. I think it’s something that’s going to really, really help the conference and continue to honor and respect the credibility of the game.”

While acknowledging the incentive Graham has to make a comment like that, he’s right. Officiating is all about credibility, and bringing in Coleman is a good first step in restoring some in the Pac-12. The returns won’t be immediate and a healthy level of skepticism is appropriate, but for a problem without an obvious solution, this seems like as good a direction as any.

Coleman hasn’t done a top-to-bottom assessment of the current officials yet, but that will be among the first orders of business when he starts later this month. From there, he’ll implement plans for long-term development and talent acquisition.

“The talent management program will be for finding people who are interested in the work. A lot of the work I did at NFL was about that,” Coleman said. “Finding young people who were athletic and liked sports and wanted to be officials. Then beginning to train them, getting them experienced at the lowest levels, then work their way up through a hierarchical system which allows them to work their ways up. Those who have the right credentials, we’ll pop to the top.

“Part of the learning process is learning at history, looking at video. We’ll have a clinic in July ... getting together with officials to test their rules knowledge, things like that, then move forward. The process of managing officials at any sport is a year-round process. It’s not just a month before the season.”