A review in the Alabama-Texas game.
College FootballNCAABy Andrew Bucholtz on

While MLB umpires have been getting much of the attention lately over odd calls, one particular call from the Big 12 officiating crew working the Alabama Crimson Tide-Texas Longhorns college football game Saturday drew a huge amount of talk in its own right. That was a play that started out looking like a safety, then drew a flag for targeting and roughing the passer, then drew talk of intentional grounding, and then on review was ruled as a simple incomplete pass.

How did this happen? Well, with just over four minutes left in the third quarter and the score knotted at 10 (despite Texas star QB Quinn Ewers leaving with an injury in the first quarter), the Longhorns downed a 50-yard punt from Daniel Trejo just in front of the Crimson Tide end zone. That gave Alabama a difficult situation. Jase McClellan ran for two yards on first down to make it second and eight from the three-yard line, but Bryce Young threw incomplete on second down, setting up third and eight.

That led to a play where Young was seemingly brought down with the ball in the end zone, with that looking to be a safety, until flags came in. But after a long review, it was instead ruled an incomplete pass, with Young getting the ball away before he was down. But the targeting and roughing the passer calls were removed, and no intentional grounding was called. And that brought up fourth and eight and letting the Crimson Tide punt the ball away. Here’s how the play initially looked on the broadcast:

Here’s a back-of-the-end-zone view:

And here’s the announcement after the review:

That led to a whole lot of reaction, much of it blasting the officials:

https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1568665632669052929

Some defended the final outcome here, though, even with the unusual journey to that point:

https://twitter.com/BrandonKoretz/status/1568667791380676608

At any rate, this certainly led to a lot of talk about the call. The crew for this game is led by referee Scott Campbell, who even got a Men’s Health fitness tips profile last year after Twitter discussed his biceps. But that’s not what people were talking about with him Saturday.

[CFB on Fox on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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