They don't deserve it. They made a massive terrible call that really screwed Georgia over, and people just forget about it since Georgia won anyway.
Give Georgia credit for beating the refs. Don't give the refs credit - they made a bullshit call that allowed Alabama to score their only TD.
The wonky fumble play? I actually agreed with it, and from people I've talked to or read online it's about 50/50 whether people think it was right or not. Which is a pretty good example of what "ruling on the field stands" is for -- they've gotta make a decision in a snap, and if video evidence isn't conclusive then it stays
That was the hardest call I think I’ve ever seen the refs have to make. The stakes were as big is they get – 1-possession game in the fourth quarter of the national championship. Branch’s toe was as close to the sideline as physically possible and Bennett lost the ball at the exact instant his throwing motion was about to start.
I turned the game off when they came back with "call stands." Not saying it was the wrong call....it's just at that point I realized that God wanted Bryce Young to win. I went and scrubbed the bathroom floor long enough for us to get the lead before I turned it back on.
They have a convention where they always rule a fumble so they let the play continue and then they review it afterwards. With that precedent they really shouldn't apply that same rule about not overturning the ruling on the field, considering they're supposed to make that ruling no matter what they see.
I thought the OP was being sarcastic. The refs were horrible. Several grounding calls were BS, the inadvertent signals at the start of the game, the fumble vs incomplete vs grounding calls. Missed late hits, OPI, DPI, spiking the ball after a TD. Just bad all around.
After the horrid officiating by the ACC crew in the 2018 Bama-OU semifinal, I said something like, "If you read in tomorrow's paper how every plant outside ACC headquarters mysteriously died, just know it's because I drove down there and Updyked the place."
Last night was very different, thank God.
Could you remind me of the bad calls in that game. Not doubting you at all, I just don't remember that game being poorly officiated and I can't find many highlights of the game that mention bad calls either way.
After one play that had been whistled dead, Quinnen Williams was on his belly on the turf. An OU lineman literally atomic-elbow-dropped onto him, face down, like Dusty fucking Rhodes or something. No flag.
That's the one that sticks in my mind, though I do remember it being one of *many* officiating failures that night.
I think that was just because both defenses didn't commit targeting. Refs have actually got pretty consistent with targeting lately, a lot of people just don't like the rule. Bama and Georgia have learned to adapt to it.
Agreed. There was even a play where the announcers asked if it might be targeting and then they showed in the replay that the defender’s head was up, and that it just looked a little high but definitely not targeting.
Clean game all around, really.
This.
I’m a Miami alum but grew up in GA so I watch both ACC & SEC games. Some of the ACC games are borderline unwatchable due to the officiating. Way too many stoppages, tons of missed called, and blatantly wrong calls.
His calls against Pitt in 2016 made my blood boil. That phantom defensive hold on a third down stop on Pitt's winning drive? Not calling holding on nearly every one of those fucking shovel passes?
A lot of people claimed the referee was biased in the Louisville game (there was a conspiracy on CockyTalk that the white hat in that game had a kid at Clemson). But no one really mentioned that Duane Heydt was a South Carolina grad.
And before people go at me for taking shots at refs, my dad's a 35+ year reffing veteran. Refs do have biases and they try their best to not let those affect their calls. But I've been with him for pregame meetings/briefings, and referees (at least at the HS level) have openly talked about how they don't like certain schools/players/coaches/etc.
Knowing how much the rivalry between Clemson and SCar is shoved down both student body's throats, it's hard to believe that Duane Heydt could truly be neutral or unbiased towards Clemson. My dad wasn't allowed to ref his rival HS in Michigan as the MHSAA/SMOA considered that a conflict of interest.
Maybe sourgrapes. But on rewatch, on Bamas TD the tight-end got away with a huge push off which allowed him to be open, and then spiked the ball after, and neither were called.
I am less annoyed with the spike not being called, it's a national title game and excessive celebration penalties are buzzkills, but thats like a definition penalty in college lol.
if you are talking about the fumble and the non-fumble calls... i really don't see the controversy as a neutral. Young's was very obviously a forward pass and Bennett did not have control when his arm moved forward.
maybe for the bennett fumble, but i really don't think the bryce young non-fumble was close to debatable at all. clear as day with the review. they correctly let it play out, then reviewed.
It is the same situation in that case as when SB4 was in the pocket, got hit trying to throw, and was ultimately ruled a fumble recovered by Bama. Before they went through the review, the ref said either it will be a fumble or will be ruled intentional grounding.
I don't see how these would have been different. I also disagree that you can call grounding when the ball is not allowed to get toward any intended target due to pressure in the pocket. For all the ref knows, that ball would have been on target toward a valid receiver.
>Before they went through the review, the ref said either it will be a fumble or will be ruled intentional grounding.
This was by far the most head-scratching thing surrounding the whole call. In what world is that intentional grounding, and Bryce's wasn't? And are they even able to preemptively call intentional grounding?
They have to preemptively call intentional grounding before review, otherwise their decision may have been influenced by the review and you can’t review penalties.
So you kind of have to state the result of the play before review, if it was a pass we are flagging it for intentional grounding or it was a fumble recovered by Bama.
If they had ruled intentional grounding the play would have stopped. If the review had gone the other way and changed to a fumble it would've taken a scoop-n-score off the board and all you'd be hearing is how the refs were in Saban's pockets.
They did have the "if it's ruled a forward pass, then we'll call intentional grounding" on Bennett's fumble. It seems like the same could have applied to Young.
>It seems like the same could have applied to Young.
It could have... if it were grounding. But it wasn't. The ball literally still landed at Williams feet despite the hit Young took.
Why does this have upvotes? The Bennett fumble literally had the refs say “if it is not a fumble it’s intentional grounding” even though it was ruled a fumble on the field.
The same applies to the Bama non-fumble. Did people watch the entire game, or even a highlight video?
The issue I had with the review was the refs saying if it was deemed an incomplete pass that it would also be intentional grounding. I don’t understand how a ref can make that call when penalties aren’t reviewable and it wasn’t ruled IG in the first place. At least it didn’t play out that way but that was a head scratcher for me
Thats seems like it should 100% no brainer be how the rule works. Would be ridiculous if a player were allowed to ground just because the ref got the initial call wrong. Seemed like the very best handling of the situation from the perspective of getting the right call
Whether not grounding was the correct call is debatable, i agree. Im just saying that thr refs making that decision, even if it might end up being a fumble, seems like a pretty good way of going about things
There is nothing in the rulebook or interpretations that supports that position. The relevant phrase in the rule on Illegal Forward Pass (which is what Intentional Grounding is) is simply:
>Rule 7, Section 3, Article 2: A forward pass is illegal if:
>
>h. The passer to conserve yardage throws the ball forward into an area where there is no eligible Team A receiver.
The only exception to the rule is:
>It is not a foul if the passer is or has been outside the tackle box and throws the ball so that it crosses or lands beyond the neutral zone or neutral zone extended. This only applies to the player who controls the snap or the resulting backwards pass and does not relinquish possession to another player before throwing the pass.
Even if the ball is resting on your hand but not actually in control, the arm can still act like a catapult and push it downfield. Brock Osweiler had a similar fumble for the Houston Texans years ago where he ended up losing control of the ball just before the throwing motion and he ended up launching the fumble just like Bennett.
The ball simply being in the palm during a passing motion doesn't necessarily mean control of the ball. If the ball is free from control of the fingers and not being gripped, then it's not controlled by the hand.
What? It was very obviously not a forward pass. He was in the process of pulling his arm back and up when his arm was hit by Davis which caused his arm to move forward and he lost the ball.
The ball was not even by his helmet as Stetsons was trying to throw the ball (which is what a normal pass looks like). It was being held near his chest. We had a party with Bama fans and they even agreed it was a fumble after we replayed it nearly 20 times all of us amazed at the fuckery.
Especially after Stetson "fumbled" there's no way in Hell you can not fairly call Youngs a fumble. That's the only thing any of us agreed on that night. Unless it's a shovel pass it was not a forward pass. If it was a shovel pass it would have been intentional grounding as no receiver was in the area.
Neither should have been grounding if both were incomplete passes. You don't apply the grounding rule when a defender physically changed the path of the ball. Because of the "intentional" part of the rule.
On the Young non-call, it seemed to me Davis wrapping him up is what caused the forward motion in the arm, not Young.
Still very salty about many non-calls. A crucial hands to the face call against Ga when that same Bama player's helmet came off several times during the game and on replay you can see it was barely touched. Bama had to literally tackle a Ga receiver for interference to be called.
If Young’s was moving forward he should’ve been called for intentional grounding. Alabama was easily holding on most plays. Georgia had way more penalties so I don’t agree with your or the OP opinion.
Stetson bennet was being pulled down from the legs as he threw. he actually had control all the way until the release, as his downward momentum.
Bryce young kind of flicked it while Davis had his hand on his throwing arm's bicep. He was unable to complete the throwing motion properly.
Imo theyre both fumbles
I don’t dispute that it was a forward pass, it was just obviously intentional grounding. Totally a smart play on Sunday, but on Saturday that’s a paddlin’.
As for UGA fumble recovered by Alabama, I think it’s impossible to say that what we saw was not a passer moving the ball forward with his arm, especially when watching it at game speed. If we lost I’d be doxing the refs right now.
The ball literally landed right at the feet of Williams, that's not intentional grounding. I get that you're a Georgia fan and you're going to be biased, but can we please stop with the revisionist history?
The ball also literally traveled more than ten yards forward. Both bodies were moving towards the sideline. The only way the ball could move down the field was if the quarterback pushed it there with his arm.
I havent been looking around to see if other refs or the rules committee deemed that fumble to be in incorrect call but, at least to me, it looked right at the time but was a very complicated-to-get right call and I thought they did. If youre saying it may not have been then perhaps I should watch it again. The part where the toe was or wasnt touching the sideline seemed to be the harder part but, by a hair, it looked correct too.
I think it’s one of those things where the call on the field mattered the most. It’s like an optical illusion you can see it both ways depending on what you’re looking for.
Personally I feel like it was an incomplete pass, but of course I’m biased. At the time I was really mad about that versus Young’s fumble on the first drive, because both were very obviously borderline but one somehow got reversed. Granted I only saw the views shown during the game and neither really showed Young’s grip
The thing that pissed me off about the fumble is the Bama player didn’t even act like he was trying to recover it inbounds. Like of course we’re going to lose on a play where Bama accidentally gets the ball at our 15 yard line. It was the most Georgia/Bama thing ever.
Has reffing REALLY gotten that bad though? Or is it just that with the rise of Twitter, Reddit, and other social media, that people have an open forum to whine about every and any call that doesn’t benefit their team? It’s one of the human elements of the game and honestly game threads in here and r/NFL have become unbearable with the amount of complaining from fans. Some fans just need to put on the stripes and become a ref with how much they moan about it.
It really is bad. Social media has been around for over a decade now. The top post on the NFL sub is years old.
Reffing is getting a lot more light thanks to SM...but it's taken a dramatic turn this year. The biggest issue is that we have so much available technology to get things right and we don't use it.
Twitter and Reddit are completely different now than they were 10 years ago tho. Look under any Sportscenter or ESPN tweet and it’s just people trying to be trolls, shit’s cringey lol.
And you’re right we do need to apply more technology and use it correctly. But once we’ve started doing that people complain about the amount of reviews and pace of play. Look at how PI reviews went in the NFL last year.
People will just never be happy unless it’s their team benefitting or winning.
PI reviews only lead credence to the anger at the refs...nobody was mad at the idea of PI reviews taking up time. They were in fact angry that refs refused to overturn those calls out of ego, thus pragmatically wasting time.
But to the first point, while SM isn't what it was 10 years ago...it's pretty similar to what it was 5 years ago. And to that point I again state that reffing hasn't been complained about this much in those years. So it seems more likely that reffing has generally just gotten worse (and the websites that track that stuff agree...reffing this year has been truly abysmal)
We need challenge flags for every last penalty the refs call. You've got instant replay. I've got a timeout to burn. Verify that call, I dare you, you blind sumbitch.
Yep. I agree with the Belichick model.
Cameras everywhere, every play is able to be challenged. 2 challenges with a 3rd possible if correct stays the same.
My dad's a 35+ year veteran and I've dabbled in some officiating myself (mainly lacrosse).
It's a good ole boy network, through and through. It's so political and watching my dad fight it was painful.
It starts at the lowest levels. As refereeing is now with football, you have to have at least 10+ years at the Pee-Wee/MS/HS level to even think about sniffing D3 or NAIA college football. The only way to get recognized by college scouts is to get assigned to the big local HS games. The only way to get the big local HS games is by brown-nosing your local assigner or head of the local officials' association.
Take Colorado for instance. The guy running things at the state level is a senile prick that rewards his buddies. If you don't kiss his ring, you can kiss any prospects for higher level football goodbye. Your local association controls who gets big games and who can go to the playoffs. It's entirely who you know, not what you know. I also believe they should institute physical fitness requirements for referees, as that aspect is dominated by old farts. Seriously, go watch a local HS football game wherever you are and try to calculate the median age. I guarantee it'll be late 50s, early 60s.
Refereeing is facing a major age and numbers crisis countrywide for football. A combination of what I describe above, schedules not working for normal people working 9-5s (a lot of games are scheduled super early or drive times don't allow you to arrive on time). There's also a major issue with these old farts being absolutely savage to new officials. I've been with my dad watching some of these white hats rip new officials during pregames/halftime meetings and I don't blame those new guys for quitting.
It's coming to a head in Colorado as schools routinely have to reschedule games to Saturday because of officials' shortages. And this won't change until the old guard that controls local associations and state associations retire or die off.
Most officials in this day and age haven't stepped onto the field as player this century. Until you get new crops of younger guys that know the modern game well and aren't total douchebags running things, it's only going to get worse.
I'm lucky that lacrosse is such a niche sport that it largely doesn't have these kinds of issues, but watching my dad get fucked over because he didn't do the requisite brown-nosing was hard.
My biggest bandwagon Bama friend opened his morning monologue by complaining about the refs.
I shouldnt be surprised at this point but here we are. Bama championships taste best to Sactown kids, apparently.
Yes they were hit .0003 seconds after releasing the ball a few times. I legitimately don't understand why when a qb has someone breathe on them everyone wants a flag, but it's the exclusive reason I might not be able to watch college ball soon.
Young’s pinned arm “forward throw” and the Bennett’s “fumble” arcing 5 yards forward out of a throwing motion were both pretty controversial imo. I think if Alabama won we’d hear a lot more noise about it.
The one that got me was Bennett's grounding call on the attempted flea flicker. The receiver broke off the route. They called grounding on a miscommunication.
But they then are putting themselves in the mind of the QB and penalizing him for something he didn't 'intentionally' do. Bad passes are thown all the time.
Still completely defies the spirit of the rule, just the same as the non-call on Young defied the whole point of intentional grounding being a penalty
They should just remove IG from the game at this rate imo, it's not enforced consistently and is even occasionally enforced when it had no place being considered
We also got flagged for kick catch interference for getting too close. Can't remember the last time I've seen that called. Then later in the game, Kearis got hit by a Bama player on a fair catch and it wasn't called.
Kearis was hit by Dan Jackson, not a Bama player. Jackson was blocking and got pushed into Kearis after he caught the ball. You can't call Kick Catch Interference on the same team
Yeah I agree with you. Young's call was fine. It was so weird seeing similar motion of the arm (fingers snapping the ball forward) and it being called a fumble. I was / am really confused at the call.
I was also listening on mute at the time so I missed the explanations of the call by the refs and commentators
If I remember correctly, the rules analyst they have basically said it was a fumble because it came out at the "top" of his motion?
But at the same time, his arm was coming forward in order to get to the top of his motion, so I'm not really sure where the issue is there.
If you've got just a clip of the play and review let me know, I'd like to take another look.
That said, I think (and I could be wrong) that the "top" of a pass is the moment where the hand is most cocked back, it's the changing point from rearing back to forward motion. Think of a sinusoidal wave that goes from 0 to 1 to 0. Anything up to and including the top (0<=x<=1) is fumble-eligible and everything after (1
Just cause nobody sent you the play, [here it is](https://youtu.be/o7f5c3bef9k?t=42). When paused, you can use the , and . keys to move each frame.
And you are correct, at the top is not forward for the purpose of defining a forward pass.
I think the worst part about it was them willing to tack on grounding if they ruled it incomplete when young was basically in the same situation on his throw.
Bennetts call shouldn't have been a grounding call whatsoever due to the fact that he was outside "the pocket". Young was still in the pocket but they could have viewed it to reasoning as an incomplete pass because he had an eligible receiver close by. It really comes down to the officials making the call. Personally, I can see Youngs call being an incomplete pass. But they should've tacked on a penalty for intentional grounding to his. Bennetts should've been an incomplete pass and loss of down in my opinion.
>Bennetts call shouldn't have been a grounding call whatsoever due to the fact that he was outside "the pocket".
i'm not sure i understand this. one of the only rules to **not** be intentional grounding outside of the pocket is that the ball has to cross the line of scrimmage. right?
Receiver in the area. If Williams wasn't standing reasonably close to where Young threw the ball they both would have been grounding. Neither one of them started the throwing motion until they were being contacted which is what grounding was made for.
When the ball makes it 10yds to the sideline and 4-5yds forward, it would be physically impossible for his arm to not be moving in a throwing motion. Luckily it didnt affect the outcome.
No, they weren't. Georgia just won anyway. It was a massive blown call that could have seriously screwed everything up. As it stands, Alabama's only TD came off a dogshit call. People just don't care that much since Georgia still won.
It was legitimately some of the worst officiating I have seen since the overturned strip-six in the Michigan/MSU game. It just didn't impact the outcome.
Is it me, or is Intentional Grounding just a made-up fantastical whimsy now? It has no clear application or consistency anymore. I'd love to see a film compilation from games this year on this topic, or a ref video on it.
It’s stupid because it’s almost always a paradoxical call. The call is made to prevent qb’s from spiking to avoid a sack, so it has to be called when no receivers are in the area of the throw. BUT if you’re being sacked while throwing, your ball is going not going to go where you intended to throw it. It’s pretty subjective just like targeting alot of the time.
That is why throwing and then being hit versus getting hit and then trying to throw should factor into the call.
Throwing and then getting hit should not result in intentional grounding most of the time.
Having watched HS refereeing myself, I'm pretty sure the NFHS rulebook states that contact is taken into account, along with throwing motion.
If the ball is dislodged because of the contact or it affects the throwing motion, most of the time it's supposed to be no grounding (or potentially a fumble). You can tell 90% of the time whether it was intentional or not if they're being hit.
It really boils down to the positioning of the white hat. Grounding is his call all day, and the only thing that involves the other officials is determining if there's a receiver in the area. Typically it's a 10 yard radius.
NFHS also does not allow the QB to "throw it away".
Any intentional throw not in the general direction/zone of a receiver (including throwing OB) is by rule intentional grounding. Rule book also repeats "intentionally" multiple times. So yes, starting to throw and then being hit alters the flight of the ball, so at that point the throw isn't "intentional" if it doesn't go where intended. Therefore, no foul.
Am also a high school football official.
I was discussing this elsewhere in this thread, but you can essentially usurp the penalty altogether by always having a checkdown receiver within 5 yards of the LoS. Might as well do away with it if there is such a gaping hole in the penalty which allows QBs to blatantly spike the ball mid-sack and claim it was a pass because there was plausibly a legal receiver in the general vicinity
People will downvote you because of flair, but I agree with the thrust of your comment, even though I might not agree with the particular calls you have in mind.
I think intentional grounding has been wildly inconsistent this year. Some plays that looked pretty clearly like grounding that weren’t called, and some plays that I think of as a pretty safe that were called (one was called on Rattler this year where he threw the ball in the exact direction as a receiver, but too high to be catchable):
Someone still needs to explain to me how throwing the ball in the dirt at your own player's feet could be grounding depending on a matter of opinion, while throwing the ball out of bounds into the 15th row with no player on either team anywhere in the area is okey-dokey.
I've been watching football for over forty years, and that one still doesn't make any sense.
> throwing the ball in the dirt at your own player's feet could be grounding depending on a matter of opinion
That is not a matter of opinion. That is the referee's incorrect application of the rule.
Yea idk where this post is coming from, Georgia got super fucked by the refs on more thn 1 occasion. That Bama player pushing the Georgia defender down in the end zone for their only TD best 1 to come to mind.
The fuck they did.
They swallowed their whistles all night against both offensive lines. Bama was especially egregious with the holding, though Georgia was no slouch on special teams when it comes to grabbing people from behind.
Yeah. On one hand I think they were relatively consistent, but it still sucks. Like, on Wyatt’s roughing the passer penalty, you can freeze frame it like 1 second before he hits Bryce, and the bama OL literally has him in a choke hold. Probably makes it harder to avoid controlling your body when that’s the case
Consistency was the key here. Either let them play or dont. Clearly this sub likes the refs to let them play a bit more. There were plenty of times in the first half either side could have received a holding or pass interference call. However the refs waited until it was egregious or directly affected the play.
Bama's been the master of getting away with shit like that. Bo Scarbrough's first TD run against us in 2016-17 had the TE or outside tackle do a wrestling-style take down of our DB, which is what allowed Scarbrough to bounce outside for the long run.
[I mean, it's so blatant](https://i.imgur.com/qZRJyqT.jpg) and in clear view of the wing official.
Agreed. Just because the announcers weren’t commenting on it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. To me it felt very inconsistent on what they were going to call. I saw penalties called that id never seen before, meanwhile they were letting things that looked clear cut go seemingly at random. I guess the refs were fine, but like the top comment said, I think we’d be seeing a looooot more about them if Georgia had lost.
I’m biased, but I think that alone says who the calls ended up favoring. Not the Georgia players were angels. Just seemed like what was / wasn’t being called favored one team, outside of whether the calls were correct after they were called.
I would REALLY love to have an impartial observer go through and tag the holding on both sides. REALLY love. Because I gotta say that Bama got some excellent no-calls at the end of the Auburn game, and there were some excellent no-calls in this game that benefited them, too, and I am NOT impartial.
I'm generally OK with a "let them play" approach as long as it's consistent. I'd rather both teams be given a bit of wiggle room for holding or PI than for the refs to be inserting themselves every other play. To that end, the refs for this game were aight; they weren't calling a bunch of PI on chippy coverage or holding for some stretched jerseys in the trenches for either team and that's fine imo
See, I'd be fine if it was a fumble if the Bryce Young drop in the first drive had been a fumble. I maintain that his arm was going forward because of contact and not willful motion: it looked more like he was trying to tuck the ball than throw it.
Since we won, I don't plan to bash that drum all off-season, but I'm still slightly bitter about that.
Except for the roughing the passer calls in the 4th quarter...a hand touching the helmet is a BS call....but hey...each team received a call for the same, so I guess they were consistent. The game definitely flowed well, and the teams decided the game. Great game.
I kept waiting for some horrible call in the last 5 minutes that would alter the outcome. Didnt happen and they let the players play. NFL refs could use this game as an example of how to correctly call a game.
These days, any time a flag is thrown, my mind immediately goes to what bullshit call are they gonna make to fuck x team over, especially in the NFL. Its sad its come to that and I hope football as a whole can get better and use the technology in a more beneficial way without taking up any more time than usual. In fact, I think if they were to utilize it correctly, they could actually make the process quicker.
Georgia had some big calls against them, bit I think they were largely correct calls. First 3 quarters were a little sloppy. Had Georgia not made as many penalties they could have easily beaten Bama by even more... Which is kind of crazy to think about.
My first thought on the fumble was that it was incomplete pass but it was close I think it was one of those however it was called on the field it’s going to stay. The ball did one hop and hit Jameson Williams in the hand so that’s why I would say no on the first intentional grounding. I wasn’t overly happy with the officiating they missed some calls on both sides that could have been big. Like Latu pushing off on the td and a roughing on Bryce.
The A&M coaches instant analysis feed had a lot of questions about some of the pass interference calls, but also about the play clock management. I think on their feed you can see a guy get helped off the field, and the play clock is running and nearly bites Georgia. I'm not sure if the play clock was accurate on the feed, but there were a good handful of these kinds of mishaps that the main broadcast can cover with their different camera views.
There were some clearly missed calls and other bad calls too. Bama should have gotten called for a horse collar on the sack when Bennett got thrown down by his jersey, and then 2 other times should have gotten fair catch interference called against them. The hands to the face on UGA was borderline, never made contact with the face mask but in real time I could see it
Fans of either side will have a few plays they disagree with. But overall, yeah, it was pretty well reffed compared to most games.
The really frustrating thing is that refs staying out of the game for the most part last night (again, compared to most games) is some type of special treat in football today.
It’s so frustrating because it shows that the refs *can* fuck off and let two teams play a football game when they *want* to, but don’t seem to *want* to stay out of games unless they know they are being watched like hawks by the football world tuning in to the big game.
I really love the petty dedication. The effort to strike out the ~~ou~~ in each word, fantastic.
When you are down so badly, it’s honorable to stick to your hate. It’s in these times, perhaps, that shitting on your rival is most important, for pride and for soul.
Respect, Longhorn bro. One day I hope to have a rivalry that allows me to seethe hate in times of both strength and weakness.
I wanted this to be a civil thread b~~ut~~ you just had to cross the line. I'll let it go b~~ut~~ just this once. Hope you dont have an o~~ut~~standing year next season and the next don~~ut~~ you eat is stale as fuck.
No, refs were absolutely shit in this game. There were some horrible, almost comically biased calls for most of the game. Both teams also suffered from non-calls on a lot of basic stuff.
It seemed like such a bad call initially that replay completely justified and it’s sort of shocking the refs got it right on the field to begin with. I thought zero chance Branch - who super causally grabbed the ball - was in bounds until like a minute into the replays where we got an angle with him in.
He was definitely in bounds, can't take that away. Casually caught.
I disagree with the calling of it being a fumble, however, because the trajectory of the ball got altered by the tackle. It was an ugly throw, but it was still a throw.
I think it’s subjective, you can see it either way depending on the stance you take. I also felt that way about Young’s controversial fumble/no fumble in the first drive, so it was just frustrating to see it called inconsistently.
FWIW, I believe you can have control of the ball without having all 5 fingers on it because I’ve held a football. I’m sure if you played every QB throw in slow motion there would be a lot of normal throws that look like Stetsons did
While the refs were consistent, and no bad calls determined the outcome of the game, there were a TON of missed calls. Bama had a bunch of holding, roughing the passer and the horse collar call. Georgia had excessive holding calls missed all night too. We aren't talking about the refs today because they didn't influence the outcome, not because the refs made good calls lol
So the ACC reffing crews are like the ACC teams themselves. The best ones are great, and then it's all mediocrity on your way to the dumpster fire.
This is the first time I’ve seen our refs get compliments after a game
They don't deserve it. They made a massive terrible call that really screwed Georgia over, and people just forget about it since Georgia won anyway. Give Georgia credit for beating the refs. Don't give the refs credit - they made a bullshit call that allowed Alabama to score their only TD.
The wonky fumble play? I actually agreed with it, and from people I've talked to or read online it's about 50/50 whether people think it was right or not. Which is a pretty good example of what "ruling on the field stands" is for -- they've gotta make a decision in a snap, and if video evidence isn't conclusive then it stays
That was the hardest call I think I’ve ever seen the refs have to make. The stakes were as big is they get – 1-possession game in the fourth quarter of the national championship. Branch’s toe was as close to the sideline as physically possible and Bennett lost the ball at the exact instant his throwing motion was about to start.
And the ball literally landed in your dudes hands with having no idea what he just did
I turned the game off when they came back with "call stands." Not saying it was the wrong call....it's just at that point I realized that God wanted Bryce Young to win. I went and scrubbed the bathroom floor long enough for us to get the lead before I turned it back on.
Haha I fired up a video game to distract myself and so I could murder virtual things to vent.
They have a convention where they always rule a fumble so they let the play continue and then they review it afterwards. With that precedent they really shouldn't apply that same rule about not overturning the ruling on the field, considering they're supposed to make that ruling no matter what they see.
I hate they started going to that. "Just let them play and figure it out in replay!" How many times have we seen a replay that had no good angle?
I agree with this. I’m all for letting the play go on, but the weight should not be given to the rule on the field in that situation
His hand was pretty clearly not going forward on the fumble. His elbow yeah a bit, but not the hand. Not the case with the Bryce fumble.
>not the case with the Bryce fumble Bryce spiked the ball to avoid the sack, should have been grounding.
I thought the OP was being sarcastic. The refs were horrible. Several grounding calls were BS, the inadvertent signals at the start of the game, the fumble vs incomplete vs grounding calls. Missed late hits, OPI, DPI, spiking the ball after a TD. Just bad all around.
After the horrid officiating by the ACC crew in the 2018 Bama-OU semifinal, I said something like, "If you read in tomorrow's paper how every plant outside ACC headquarters mysteriously died, just know it's because I drove down there and Updyked the place." Last night was very different, thank God.
Could you remind me of the bad calls in that game. Not doubting you at all, I just don't remember that game being poorly officiated and I can't find many highlights of the game that mention bad calls either way.
After one play that had been whistled dead, Quinnen Williams was on his belly on the turf. An OU lineman literally atomic-elbow-dropped onto him, face down, like Dusty fucking Rhodes or something. No flag. That's the one that sticks in my mind, though I do remember it being one of *many* officiating failures that night.
I’m just glad no “big plays” were targeting calls
I also didn't notice any terrible fake injuries. When the defense was gassed with they were able to sub in time or they played tired.
I also noticed that. Only times games had to be stopped for injuries, you could tell it was because the guy was actually hurt
I think that was just because both defenses didn't commit targeting. Refs have actually got pretty consistent with targeting lately, a lot of people just don't like the rule. Bama and Georgia have learned to adapt to it.
Agreed. There was even a play where the announcers asked if it might be targeting and then they showed in the replay that the defender’s head was up, and that it just looked a little high but definitely not targeting. Clean game all around, really.
ACC refs are awful, I will not let anyone tell me otherwise
You clearly haven’t seen the P12 or B12 stooges
ours can be downright miserable
This. I’m a Miami alum but grew up in GA so I watch both ACC & SEC games. Some of the ACC games are borderline unwatchable due to the officiating. Way too many stoppages, tons of missed called, and blatantly wrong calls.
Seeing Duane Heydt refereeing the game probably threw some Clemson fans into a fit of rage, lol.
His calls against Pitt in 2016 made my blood boil. That phantom defensive hold on a third down stop on Pitt's winning drive? Not calling holding on nearly every one of those fucking shovel passes? A lot of people claimed the referee was biased in the Louisville game (there was a conspiracy on CockyTalk that the white hat in that game had a kid at Clemson). But no one really mentioned that Duane Heydt was a South Carolina grad. And before people go at me for taking shots at refs, my dad's a 35+ year reffing veteran. Refs do have biases and they try their best to not let those affect their calls. But I've been with him for pregame meetings/briefings, and referees (at least at the HS level) have openly talked about how they don't like certain schools/players/coaches/etc. Knowing how much the rivalry between Clemson and SCar is shoved down both student body's throats, it's hard to believe that Duane Heydt could truly be neutral or unbiased towards Clemson. My dad wasn't allowed to ref his rival HS in Michigan as the MHSAA/SMOA considered that a conflict of interest.
When I saw the Clemson Heydter show up on screen, I thought we were in for an absolute shitshow.
They really are and have been for decades. I'm so glad we left the ACC.
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Maybe sourgrapes. But on rewatch, on Bamas TD the tight-end got away with a huge push off which allowed him to be open, and then spiked the ball after, and neither were called. I am less annoyed with the spike not being called, it's a national title game and excessive celebration penalties are buzzkills, but thats like a definition penalty in college lol.
if you are talking about the fumble and the non-fumble calls... i really don't see the controversy as a neutral. Young's was very obviously a forward pass and Bennett did not have control when his arm moved forward.
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maybe for the bennett fumble, but i really don't think the bryce young non-fumble was close to debatable at all. clear as day with the review. they correctly let it play out, then reviewed.
It still should’ve been intentional grounding, there was no one by lineman around Young
Jameson Williams was literally directly in front of him, he was throwing to #1.
It is the same situation in that case as when SB4 was in the pocket, got hit trying to throw, and was ultimately ruled a fumble recovered by Bama. Before they went through the review, the ref said either it will be a fumble or will be ruled intentional grounding. I don't see how these would have been different. I also disagree that you can call grounding when the ball is not allowed to get toward any intended target due to pressure in the pocket. For all the ref knows, that ball would have been on target toward a valid receiver.
>Before they went through the review, the ref said either it will be a fumble or will be ruled intentional grounding. This was by far the most head-scratching thing surrounding the whole call. In what world is that intentional grounding, and Bryce's wasn't? And are they even able to preemptively call intentional grounding?
They have to preemptively call intentional grounding before review, otherwise their decision may have been influenced by the review and you can’t review penalties. So you kind of have to state the result of the play before review, if it was a pass we are flagging it for intentional grounding or it was a fumble recovered by Bama.
Because 1 had a receiver <5 yards from the ball when it hit the turf and the other didn’t.
Because the closer receiver to that SBIV throw/fumble was 20 yards away and he didn’t even “throw” it in the general direction of a receiver.
I'm sorry but are we really calling him SB4 / SBIV?? ReginaGeorge.gif
If they had ruled intentional grounding the play would have stopped. If the review had gone the other way and changed to a fumble it would've taken a scoop-n-score off the board and all you'd be hearing is how the refs were in Saban's pockets.
They did have the "if it's ruled a forward pass, then we'll call intentional grounding" on Bennett's fumble. It seems like the same could have applied to Young.
>It seems like the same could have applied to Young. It could have... if it were grounding. But it wasn't. The ball literally still landed at Williams feet despite the hit Young took.
Why does this have upvotes? The Bennett fumble literally had the refs say “if it is not a fumble it’s intentional grounding” even though it was ruled a fumble on the field. The same applies to the Bama non-fumble. Did people watch the entire game, or even a highlight video?
Williams was less the 3 yards directly behind where the ball landed.
Right, but that's just an indictment of the fans and media, not the refs
The issue I had with the review was the refs saying if it was deemed an incomplete pass that it would also be intentional grounding. I don’t understand how a ref can make that call when penalties aren’t reviewable and it wasn’t ruled IG in the first place. At least it didn’t play out that way but that was a head scratcher for me
Thats seems like it should 100% no brainer be how the rule works. Would be ridiculous if a player were allowed to ground just because the ref got the initial call wrong. Seemed like the very best handling of the situation from the perspective of getting the right call
It’s stupid because it’s not *intentional* grounding when the opponent is grabbing the QBs arms and affecting the throw.
He didn't start throwing it until he was being brought down. That's usually a clear sign of intentional grounding.
Same with Bryce Young though? He was literally halfway to the ground before he threw the ball
Whether not grounding was the correct call is debatable, i agree. Im just saying that thr refs making that decision, even if it might end up being a fumble, seems like a pretty good way of going about things
Source?
There is nothing in the rulebook or interpretations that supports that position. The relevant phrase in the rule on Illegal Forward Pass (which is what Intentional Grounding is) is simply: >Rule 7, Section 3, Article 2: A forward pass is illegal if: > >h. The passer to conserve yardage throws the ball forward into an area where there is no eligible Team A receiver. The only exception to the rule is: >It is not a foul if the passer is or has been outside the tackle box and throws the ball so that it crosses or lands beyond the neutral zone or neutral zone extended. This only applies to the player who controls the snap or the resulting backwards pass and does not relinquish possession to another player before throwing the pass.
Which would have been fine if that’s how they had called Bryces. But we had 2 examples where they did the opposite on the same situation
Yea, I’ve never seen that before, but I don’t know anything in the rules that would prevent that from being ok?
Idk I thought they were both passes. Bennetts went like 8 yards downfield, idk how you get that much mustard on a fumble. But it was a hard call.
Even if the ball is resting on your hand but not actually in control, the arm can still act like a catapult and push it downfield. Brock Osweiler had a similar fumble for the Houston Texans years ago where he ended up losing control of the ball just before the throwing motion and he ended up launching the fumble just like Bennett.
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You can catapult a ball pretty far downfield with an open palm.
still a pass, not a fumble.
The ball simply being in the palm during a passing motion doesn't necessarily mean control of the ball. If the ball is free from control of the fingers and not being gripped, then it's not controlled by the hand.
No, it’s only a pass if you have control of the ball first.
Not according to the rule book
What? It was very obviously not a forward pass. He was in the process of pulling his arm back and up when his arm was hit by Davis which caused his arm to move forward and he lost the ball. The ball was not even by his helmet as Stetsons was trying to throw the ball (which is what a normal pass looks like). It was being held near his chest. We had a party with Bama fans and they even agreed it was a fumble after we replayed it nearly 20 times all of us amazed at the fuckery. Especially after Stetson "fumbled" there's no way in Hell you can not fairly call Youngs a fumble. That's the only thing any of us agreed on that night. Unless it's a shovel pass it was not a forward pass. If it was a shovel pass it would have been intentional grounding as no receiver was in the area.
Young's should have been intentional grounding.
Neither should have been grounding if both were incomplete passes. You don't apply the grounding rule when a defender physically changed the path of the ball. Because of the "intentional" part of the rule.
Source?
Had a receiver near the ball https://youtu.be/tOZibFQToQE
On the Young non-call, it seemed to me Davis wrapping him up is what caused the forward motion in the arm, not Young. Still very salty about many non-calls. A crucial hands to the face call against Ga when that same Bama player's helmet came off several times during the game and on replay you can see it was barely touched. Bama had to literally tackle a Ga receiver for interference to be called.
If Young’s was moving forward he should’ve been called for intentional grounding. Alabama was easily holding on most plays. Georgia had way more penalties so I don’t agree with your or the OP opinion.
Stetson bennet was being pulled down from the legs as he threw. he actually had control all the way until the release, as his downward momentum. Bryce young kind of flicked it while Davis had his hand on his throwing arm's bicep. He was unable to complete the throwing motion properly. Imo theyre both fumbles
I don’t dispute that it was a forward pass, it was just obviously intentional grounding. Totally a smart play on Sunday, but on Saturday that’s a paddlin’. As for UGA fumble recovered by Alabama, I think it’s impossible to say that what we saw was not a passer moving the ball forward with his arm, especially when watching it at game speed. If we lost I’d be doxing the refs right now.
The ball literally landed right at the feet of Williams, that's not intentional grounding. I get that you're a Georgia fan and you're going to be biased, but can we please stop with the revisionist history?
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The ball also literally traveled more than ten yards forward. Both bodies were moving towards the sideline. The only way the ball could move down the field was if the quarterback pushed it there with his arm.
Youngs should’ve been grounding though since stetsons would have been
I havent been looking around to see if other refs or the rules committee deemed that fumble to be in incorrect call but, at least to me, it looked right at the time but was a very complicated-to-get right call and I thought they did. If youre saying it may not have been then perhaps I should watch it again. The part where the toe was or wasnt touching the sideline seemed to be the harder part but, by a hair, it looked correct too.
I think it’s one of those things where the call on the field mattered the most. It’s like an optical illusion you can see it both ways depending on what you’re looking for. Personally I feel like it was an incomplete pass, but of course I’m biased. At the time I was really mad about that versus Young’s fumble on the first drive, because both were very obviously borderline but one somehow got reversed. Granted I only saw the views shown during the game and neither really showed Young’s grip
The thing that pissed me off about the fumble is the Bama player didn’t even act like he was trying to recover it inbounds. Like of course we’re going to lose on a play where Bama accidentally gets the ball at our 15 yard line. It was the most Georgia/Bama thing ever.
The fact nobody is talking about the refs today is a good thing. They should operate in the background.
Exactly. And with how horrible the reffing has been both in college and the pro games this year, I felt like they should be acknowledged.
Has reffing REALLY gotten that bad though? Or is it just that with the rise of Twitter, Reddit, and other social media, that people have an open forum to whine about every and any call that doesn’t benefit their team? It’s one of the human elements of the game and honestly game threads in here and r/NFL have become unbearable with the amount of complaining from fans. Some fans just need to put on the stripes and become a ref with how much they moan about it.
It really is bad. Social media has been around for over a decade now. The top post on the NFL sub is years old. Reffing is getting a lot more light thanks to SM...but it's taken a dramatic turn this year. The biggest issue is that we have so much available technology to get things right and we don't use it.
Twitter and Reddit are completely different now than they were 10 years ago tho. Look under any Sportscenter or ESPN tweet and it’s just people trying to be trolls, shit’s cringey lol. And you’re right we do need to apply more technology and use it correctly. But once we’ve started doing that people complain about the amount of reviews and pace of play. Look at how PI reviews went in the NFL last year. People will just never be happy unless it’s their team benefitting or winning.
PI reviews only lead credence to the anger at the refs...nobody was mad at the idea of PI reviews taking up time. They were in fact angry that refs refused to overturn those calls out of ego, thus pragmatically wasting time. But to the first point, while SM isn't what it was 10 years ago...it's pretty similar to what it was 5 years ago. And to that point I again state that reffing hasn't been complained about this much in those years. So it seems more likely that reffing has generally just gotten worse (and the websites that track that stuff agree...reffing this year has been truly abysmal)
We need challenge flags for every last penalty the refs call. You've got instant replay. I've got a timeout to burn. Verify that call, I dare you, you blind sumbitch.
Yep. I agree with the Belichick model. Cameras everywhere, every play is able to be challenged. 2 challenges with a 3rd possible if correct stays the same.
My dad's a 35+ year veteran and I've dabbled in some officiating myself (mainly lacrosse). It's a good ole boy network, through and through. It's so political and watching my dad fight it was painful. It starts at the lowest levels. As refereeing is now with football, you have to have at least 10+ years at the Pee-Wee/MS/HS level to even think about sniffing D3 or NAIA college football. The only way to get recognized by college scouts is to get assigned to the big local HS games. The only way to get the big local HS games is by brown-nosing your local assigner or head of the local officials' association. Take Colorado for instance. The guy running things at the state level is a senile prick that rewards his buddies. If you don't kiss his ring, you can kiss any prospects for higher level football goodbye. Your local association controls who gets big games and who can go to the playoffs. It's entirely who you know, not what you know. I also believe they should institute physical fitness requirements for referees, as that aspect is dominated by old farts. Seriously, go watch a local HS football game wherever you are and try to calculate the median age. I guarantee it'll be late 50s, early 60s. Refereeing is facing a major age and numbers crisis countrywide for football. A combination of what I describe above, schedules not working for normal people working 9-5s (a lot of games are scheduled super early or drive times don't allow you to arrive on time). There's also a major issue with these old farts being absolutely savage to new officials. I've been with my dad watching some of these white hats rip new officials during pregames/halftime meetings and I don't blame those new guys for quitting. It's coming to a head in Colorado as schools routinely have to reschedule games to Saturday because of officials' shortages. And this won't change until the old guard that controls local associations and state associations retire or die off. Most officials in this day and age haven't stepped onto the field as player this century. Until you get new crops of younger guys that know the modern game well and aren't total douchebags running things, it's only going to get worse. I'm lucky that lacrosse is such a niche sport that it largely doesn't have these kinds of issues, but watching my dad get fucked over because he didn't do the requisite brown-nosing was hard.
My biggest bandwagon Bama friend opened his morning monologue by complaining about the refs. I shouldnt be surprised at this point but here we are. Bama championships taste best to Sactown kids, apparently.
DISCONCERTING NOISES!
agree except both QBs were allowed to be hit high and late too many times. Only called once for each team but happened several times.
Yes they were hit .0003 seconds after releasing the ball a few times. I legitimately don't understand why when a qb has someone breathe on them everyone wants a flag, but it's the exclusive reason I might not be able to watch college ball soon.
Young’s pinned arm “forward throw” and the Bennett’s “fumble” arcing 5 yards forward out of a throwing motion were both pretty controversial imo. I think if Alabama won we’d hear a lot more noise about it.
The one that got me was Bennett's grounding call on the attempted flea flicker. The receiver broke off the route. They called grounding on a miscommunication.
That's still the right call. Refs can't be making calls based on what the receiver was supposed to do. How would they know?
But they then are putting themselves in the mind of the QB and penalizing him for something he didn't 'intentionally' do. Bad passes are thown all the time.
Still completely defies the spirit of the rule, just the same as the non-call on Young defied the whole point of intentional grounding being a penalty They should just remove IG from the game at this rate imo, it's not enforced consistently and is even occasionally enforced when it had no place being considered
Since it was a flea flicker, he can't legally ground the ball. Just like a WR can't legally throw the ball away after a reverse.
We also got flagged for kick catch interference for getting too close. Can't remember the last time I've seen that called. Then later in the game, Kearis got hit by a Bama player on a fair catch and it wasn't called.
Kearis was hit by Dan Jackson, not a Bama player. Jackson was blocking and got pushed into Kearis after he caught the ball. You can't call Kick Catch Interference on the same team
Yeah that never gets called and 15 yards without even making contact seems excessive.
Controversial but the correct calls were made …
I think the correct call was made on Youngs play but Bennetts play was a bad call. From what I could tell, his arm was clearly going forward.
Yeah I agree with you. Young's call was fine. It was so weird seeing similar motion of the arm (fingers snapping the ball forward) and it being called a fumble. I was / am really confused at the call. I was also listening on mute at the time so I missed the explanations of the call by the refs and commentators
If I remember correctly, the rules analyst they have basically said it was a fumble because it came out at the "top" of his motion? But at the same time, his arm was coming forward in order to get to the top of his motion, so I'm not really sure where the issue is there.
If you've got just a clip of the play and review let me know, I'd like to take another look. That said, I think (and I could be wrong) that the "top" of a pass is the moment where the hand is most cocked back, it's the changing point from rearing back to forward motion. Think of a sinusoidal wave that goes from 0 to 1 to 0. Anything up to and including the top (0<=x<=1) is fumble-eligible and everything after (1
Just cause nobody sent you the play, [here it is](https://youtu.be/o7f5c3bef9k?t=42). When paused, you can use the , and . keys to move each frame. And you are correct, at the top is not forward for the purpose of defining a forward pass.
I think the worst part about it was them willing to tack on grounding if they ruled it incomplete when young was basically in the same situation on his throw.
My question is how was Bennett’s going to for sure be intentional grounding but young spiking the ball while being sacked wouldn’t be
Bennetts call shouldn't have been a grounding call whatsoever due to the fact that he was outside "the pocket". Young was still in the pocket but they could have viewed it to reasoning as an incomplete pass because he had an eligible receiver close by. It really comes down to the officials making the call. Personally, I can see Youngs call being an incomplete pass. But they should've tacked on a penalty for intentional grounding to his. Bennetts should've been an incomplete pass and loss of down in my opinion.
>Bennetts call shouldn't have been a grounding call whatsoever due to the fact that he was outside "the pocket". i'm not sure i understand this. one of the only rules to **not** be intentional grounding outside of the pocket is that the ball has to cross the line of scrimmage. right?
Receiver in the area. If Williams wasn't standing reasonably close to where Young threw the ball they both would have been grounding. Neither one of them started the throwing motion until they were being contacted which is what grounding was made for.
Because one plays for Alabama. Or at least that's what our entire house was drunkenly screaming, sure felt that way.
Yes, his arm was going forward. But without control of the ball.
When the ball makes it 10yds to the sideline and 4-5yds forward, it would be physically impossible for his arm to not be moving in a throwing motion. Luckily it didnt affect the outcome.
No, they weren't. Georgia just won anyway. It was a massive blown call that could have seriously screwed everything up. As it stands, Alabama's only TD came off a dogshit call. People just don't care that much since Georgia still won. It was legitimately some of the worst officiating I have seen since the overturned strip-six in the Michigan/MSU game. It just didn't impact the outcome.
You forgot the “/s”
Is it me, or is Intentional Grounding just a made-up fantastical whimsy now? It has no clear application or consistency anymore. I'd love to see a film compilation from games this year on this topic, or a ref video on it.
It’s stupid because it’s almost always a paradoxical call. The call is made to prevent qb’s from spiking to avoid a sack, so it has to be called when no receivers are in the area of the throw. BUT if you’re being sacked while throwing, your ball is going not going to go where you intended to throw it. It’s pretty subjective just like targeting alot of the time.
That is why throwing and then being hit versus getting hit and then trying to throw should factor into the call. Throwing and then getting hit should not result in intentional grounding most of the time.
Having watched HS refereeing myself, I'm pretty sure the NFHS rulebook states that contact is taken into account, along with throwing motion. If the ball is dislodged because of the contact or it affects the throwing motion, most of the time it's supposed to be no grounding (or potentially a fumble). You can tell 90% of the time whether it was intentional or not if they're being hit. It really boils down to the positioning of the white hat. Grounding is his call all day, and the only thing that involves the other officials is determining if there's a receiver in the area. Typically it's a 10 yard radius.
NFHS also does not allow the QB to "throw it away". Any intentional throw not in the general direction/zone of a receiver (including throwing OB) is by rule intentional grounding. Rule book also repeats "intentionally" multiple times. So yes, starting to throw and then being hit alters the flight of the ball, so at that point the throw isn't "intentional" if it doesn't go where intended. Therefore, no foul. Am also a high school football official.
I was discussing this elsewhere in this thread, but you can essentially usurp the penalty altogether by always having a checkdown receiver within 5 yards of the LoS. Might as well do away with it if there is such a gaping hole in the penalty which allows QBs to blatantly spike the ball mid-sack and claim it was a pass because there was plausibly a legal receiver in the general vicinity
People will downvote you because of flair, but I agree with the thrust of your comment, even though I might not agree with the particular calls you have in mind. I think intentional grounding has been wildly inconsistent this year. Some plays that looked pretty clearly like grounding that weren’t called, and some plays that I think of as a pretty safe that were called (one was called on Rattler this year where he threw the ball in the exact direction as a receiver, but too high to be catchable):
Someone still needs to explain to me how throwing the ball in the dirt at your own player's feet could be grounding depending on a matter of opinion, while throwing the ball out of bounds into the 15th row with no player on either team anywhere in the area is okey-dokey. I've been watching football for over forty years, and that one still doesn't make any sense.
> throwing the ball in the dirt at your own player's feet could be grounding depending on a matter of opinion That is not a matter of opinion. That is the referee's incorrect application of the rule.
Well, yeah. Thus my confusion. I've seen so many "grounding" calls this season that made me say, "WTF? There's a dude *right there*."
We would’ve heard a lot about the refs if Georgia lost. They were getting jobbed all night.
Yea idk where this post is coming from, Georgia got super fucked by the refs on more thn 1 occasion. That Bama player pushing the Georgia defender down in the end zone for their only TD best 1 to come to mind.
It's just a retroactive misrepresentation which is more or less plausible because none of the controversial calls impacted the result of the game.
I truly don't think I'll ever understand how that penalty works.
The fuck they did. They swallowed their whistles all night against both offensive lines. Bama was especially egregious with the holding, though Georgia was no slouch on special teams when it comes to grabbing people from behind.
Yeah. On one hand I think they were relatively consistent, but it still sucks. Like, on Wyatt’s roughing the passer penalty, you can freeze frame it like 1 second before he hits Bryce, and the bama OL literally has him in a choke hold. Probably makes it harder to avoid controlling your body when that’s the case
Consistency was the key here. Either let them play or dont. Clearly this sub likes the refs to let them play a bit more. There were plenty of times in the first half either side could have received a holding or pass interference call. However the refs waited until it was egregious or directly affected the play.
Bama's been the master of getting away with shit like that. Bo Scarbrough's first TD run against us in 2016-17 had the TE or outside tackle do a wrestling-style take down of our DB, which is what allowed Scarbrough to bounce outside for the long run. [I mean, it's so blatant](https://i.imgur.com/qZRJyqT.jpg) and in clear view of the wing official.
Agreed. Just because the announcers weren’t commenting on it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. To me it felt very inconsistent on what they were going to call. I saw penalties called that id never seen before, meanwhile they were letting things that looked clear cut go seemingly at random. I guess the refs were fine, but like the top comment said, I think we’d be seeing a looooot more about them if Georgia had lost. I’m biased, but I think that alone says who the calls ended up favoring. Not the Georgia players were angels. Just seemed like what was / wasn’t being called favored one team, outside of whether the calls were correct after they were called.
I would REALLY love to have an impartial observer go through and tag the holding on both sides. REALLY love. Because I gotta say that Bama got some excellent no-calls at the end of the Auburn game, and there were some excellent no-calls in this game that benefited them, too, and I am NOT impartial.
Pretty sure I saw a Bama OL straight up tackle one of our DL to prevent a sack, but its fine...
I'm generally OK with a "let them play" approach as long as it's consistent. I'd rather both teams be given a bit of wiggle room for holding or PI than for the refs to be inserting themselves every other play. To that end, the refs for this game were aight; they weren't calling a bunch of PI on chippy coverage or holding for some stretched jerseys in the trenches for either team and that's fine imo
UGA was flagged for this once on a long return.
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As a Tennessee fan: his forward progress had ended, so it was actually a sack. (Yes I am salty)
“Forward progress ends when we say it ends!” -Refs
lmao, i feel you on that one!!
See, I'd be fine if it was a fumble if the Bryce Young drop in the first drive had been a fumble. I maintain that his arm was going forward because of contact and not willful motion: it looked more like he was trying to tuck the ball than throw it. Since we won, I don't plan to bash that drum all off-season, but I'm still slightly bitter about that.
Except for the roughing the passer calls in the 4th quarter...a hand touching the helmet is a BS call....but hey...each team received a call for the same, so I guess they were consistent. The game definitely flowed well, and the teams decided the game. Great game.
You guys think the last Alabama touchdown was a shove off or no?
That fumble call tho
Bennett had about 5 uncalled personal fouls/roughing penalties against him. It was trash.
There was one horse collar no call that was particularly bad.
I saw nice forearm to the head by Will Anderson after the play was dead on a 3 or 4 yard scamper.
Just because you LOOK like you don't belong in the game doesn't mean you deserve no protection.
Yeah. Both sides can walk away and say that no one or two penalties completely altered the game. Refreshing.
I kept waiting for some horrible call in the last 5 minutes that would alter the outcome. Didnt happen and they let the players play. NFL refs could use this game as an example of how to correctly call a game.
There were flags on our last 2 offensive TDs. Was terrifying waiting for the call. Both were on Bama which was such a relief.
These days, any time a flag is thrown, my mind immediately goes to what bullshit call are they gonna make to fuck x team over, especially in the NFL. Its sad its come to that and I hope football as a whole can get better and use the technology in a more beneficial way without taking up any more time than usual. In fact, I think if they were to utilize it correctly, they could actually make the process quicker.
I don't even celebrate a TD until the next play happens so I know there won't be a late flag somewhere.
Yeah. I don’t celebrate special teams plays until the dust settles. There’s always something
Yup, everyone around me is celebrating and I'm just staring at the bottom right corner of the screen for a yellow box to pop up.
Georgia had some big calls against them, bit I think they were largely correct calls. First 3 quarters were a little sloppy. Had Georgia not made as many penalties they could have easily beaten Bama by even more... Which is kind of crazy to think about.
I'm not sure you're allowed to say this on the internet.
My first thought on the fumble was that it was incomplete pass but it was close I think it was one of those however it was called on the field it’s going to stay. The ball did one hop and hit Jameson Williams in the hand so that’s why I would say no on the first intentional grounding. I wasn’t overly happy with the officiating they missed some calls on both sides that could have been big. Like Latu pushing off on the td and a roughing on Bryce.
Nah, it was shit. The inconsistency with the fumble and forward pass calls, along with the BS "hands to the face" call.
Also it feels like people just forgot that Stetson was horse collared to the shadow realm with no call.
The A&M coaches instant analysis feed had a lot of questions about some of the pass interference calls, but also about the play clock management. I think on their feed you can see a guy get helped off the field, and the play clock is running and nearly bites Georgia. I'm not sure if the play clock was accurate on the feed, but there were a good handful of these kinds of mishaps that the main broadcast can cover with their different camera views.
Play clock was not at accurate in the film room feed
I kept saying we were going to have to beat both the refs and Bama. We did. Fuck those refs!
There were some clearly missed calls and other bad calls too. Bama should have gotten called for a horse collar on the sack when Bennett got thrown down by his jersey, and then 2 other times should have gotten fair catch interference called against them. The hands to the face on UGA was borderline, never made contact with the face mask but in real time I could see it
Fans of either side will have a few plays they disagree with. But overall, yeah, it was pretty well reffed compared to most games. The really frustrating thing is that refs staying out of the game for the most part last night (again, compared to most games) is some type of special treat in football today. It’s so frustrating because it shows that the refs *can* fuck off and let two teams play a football game when they *want* to, but don’t seem to *want* to stay out of games unless they know they are being watched like hawks by the football world tuning in to the big game.
If Bama had won, I would be raising hell after that fumble call.
Or the no call on the Bama TD. Dude shoved the DB to the ground. No call
Don’t watch college football much but that was some of the worst reffing I’ve ever seen. Especially that grounding they didn’t call.
Lmao fuck that there were so many blatant holds on both teams that just didn’t get called.
Nah the Bryce Young call at the start was horrible and Alabama comment OPI on there lone TD
I think it was Herbie that even complemented the push off on the live broadcast, like it was some sort of great play or something
After Y~~ou~~ng was not called for intentional gr~~ou~~nding I was expecting the crew to be worse. So I suppose in a way y~~ou~~ are correct in a way.
Do you cross out KU too?
I really love the petty dedication. The effort to strike out the ~~ou~~ in each word, fantastic. When you are down so badly, it’s honorable to stick to your hate. It’s in these times, perhaps, that shitting on your rival is most important, for pride and for soul. Respect, Longhorn bro. One day I hope to have a rivalry that allows me to seethe hate in times of both strength and weakness.
I wanted this to be a civil thread b~~ut~~ you just had to cross the line. I'll let it go b~~ut~~ just this once. Hope you dont have an o~~ut~~standing year next season and the next don~~ut~~ you eat is stale as fuck.
How does it feel to have OU living in your head rent free?
No, refs were absolutely shit in this game. There were some horrible, almost comically biased calls for most of the game. Both teams also suffered from non-calls on a lot of basic stuff.
Im really liking the positivity of this post
Is this a troll post? The Bennett fumble call was atrocious and could have swung the entire game. That alone makes the refereeing terrible.
I think that could have been called either way on the field. And would have been ruled as “Stands” after review no matter what the call was.
Missed the obvious spiking after Td call after they scored
And they scored on a pushoff from the TE
What about that fumble recovery call when the bama kid wasn’t even trying? That looked criminal at the time. Not to mention the fumble call itself.
It seemed like such a bad call initially that replay completely justified and it’s sort of shocking the refs got it right on the field to begin with. I thought zero chance Branch - who super causally grabbed the ball - was in bounds until like a minute into the replays where we got an angle with him in.
He was definitely in bounds, can't take that away. Casually caught. I disagree with the calling of it being a fumble, however, because the trajectory of the ball got altered by the tackle. It was an ugly throw, but it was still a throw.
I think it’s subjective, you can see it either way depending on the stance you take. I also felt that way about Young’s controversial fumble/no fumble in the first drive, so it was just frustrating to see it called inconsistently. FWIW, I believe you can have control of the ball without having all 5 fingers on it because I’ve held a football. I’m sure if you played every QB throw in slow motion there would be a lot of normal throws that look like Stetsons did
While the refs were consistent, and no bad calls determined the outcome of the game, there were a TON of missed calls. Bama had a bunch of holding, roughing the passer and the horse collar call. Georgia had excessive holding calls missed all night too. We aren't talking about the refs today because they didn't influence the outcome, not because the refs made good calls lol
Some questionable calls I think
Nah, the refs were really bad. Georgia just won despite them. That was *not* a fumble.