After several officiating blunders that arguably altered game outcomes and may have even affected national rankings, the Big 12 has called a meeting with everyone involved in its officiating program to address the issues, Jon Wilner of Mercury News reports.
Among the conference’s officiating woes were two blown calls involving BYU.
The first came two weeks ago in the highly anticipated clash between the Cougars and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. With three seconds remaining and BYU leading 28-24, Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr threw an incomplete pass to wide receiver Jaden Greathouse. However, despite the clock clearly showing one second remaining, the clock was allowed to expire, and BYU won.
In a statement later that night, the Big 12 admitted to the officiating mistake, saying that one second should have remained on the clock.
The second most serious mistake occurred last weekend when BYU faced Arizona State. BYU QB Bear Bachmeier fumbled the football at the one-yard line. Cougars running back Sione Moa picked it up at the two-yard line and ran it in for a touchdown.
After the game, the Big 12 admitted the play should have been blown dead where Moa recovered the ball, and he should not have been allowed to advance it.
Rule 12-3-3-d-2 states, ‘If the replay official rules that the ball was not dead, it belongs to the recovering team at the spot of the recovery and any advance is nullified.”
Although replay officials reviewed the play multiple times, the crew still awarded BYU the touchdown.
BYU won the game by one touchdown.
Much has been made of the Big 12’s planned Review Operations Center (ROC), which, according to the league, will “further modernize the Conference’s replay operations, game management and future all-sport replay capabilities.”
The ROC is set to open in 2027.
However, the calls that the conference’s officials are missing, especially in the case of the Arizona State game, have to do with basic rules knowledge. This makes many legitimately wonder whether all the technology in the world even matters if the referees don’t know the rules…
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