Utah made many great plays, but let’s be real: Pac-12 refs crushed USC in this game
Let’s be clear to say this, just so no one can perceive that we won’t give credit where due: Utah’s tandem of tight end Dalton Kincaid and quarterback Cam Rising were spectacular against USC on Saturday night in Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City.
Those two young men are celebrating a victory over the Trojans, and no one should tell them they didn’t deserve it. They did absolutely everything they could, and so no one should tell them they didn’t earn their win. Utah certainly fought and scratched for this victory in a game it trailed by 14 points earlier in the proceedings. Utah stepped up, and that’s definitely part of the story here.
Yet: USC was wronged. Severely. We can all admit that, too.
Let’s go through the most important details of Saturday night’s debacle in Salt Lake City:
THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM
We will discuss a lot of different aspects of this pathetic performance from the Pac-12 officiating crew, but this one tops them all: The refusal to overturn a 15-yard penalty on the second of the two roughing-the-passer calls which changed the game. Targeting was overturned and rescinded, but not the 15-yard penalty. That’s outrageous.
RESCIND EVERYTHING, NOT HALF
It is very rare that a 15-yard penalty remains in place even while targeting is rescinded. For the 15-yard penalty to still apply, one of two things must still exist:
The defensive player led with the helmet. He might not have hit the head or neck, but he still engaged in spearing, which is unnecessary roughness.
The hit was unquestionably, significantly, late.
Neither of those things applied to that second penalty.
BIAS
When a call is missed, that’s one thing. When a procedure — rescinding a penalty unless one of two details clearly existed — is so obviously ignored, that is a red flag, pun not intended.
Rescinding the targeting foul but not the penalty on that hit — which involved no helmet contact and was not egregiously late — is exactly the kind of decision which conveys the idea that a crew was bent on engineering the outcome.
Seriously: Rescinding targeting but not the flag itself is extremely rare. USC just happened to be on the short end? That’s awful beyond words. It’s not just the missed call; it’s the ignorance of proper procedure.
THE OTHER ROUGHING THE PASSER CALL
The first of the two roughing calls — which did not involve targeting but was simply assessed for a late hit — was noticeably bad because the act involved was a two-handed shove. It wasn’t even a hit. It was not a violent play.
It was a two-handed shove. That’s flag football, basically.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
So let’s get this straight: The two roughing calls were for a two-handed shove, and then for a play on which targeting was rescinded but a 15-yard penalty was kept in place. Two rulings which defy all rationality and common sense went against the same team in the same game.
BACK TO THE WELL AGAIN
A reasonable person would have thought that after the first bad roughing call, surely a second worse roughing call would not have occurred. Yet, that’s exactly what happened.
If the Pac-12 officiating crew failed to give USC the benefit of the doubt the first time, surely it should have been willing to do as much the second time. Yet, the second call — precisely because targeting was rescinded, only for the penalty to be kept in place — was a worse call than the first.
This was an extraordinary case of a team getting shafted on two marginal calls which also flouted sound textbook procedure. It’s hard to fully absorb how bad this all is.
MORE CALLS
Utah got a pass interference call on a play when Cam Rising gunned the ball 10 yards beyond the field of play, out of the back of the end zone. No discussion occurred on that play. Ridiculous.
MARIO WILLIAMS HOLDING
Mario Williams was called for a hold in the fourth quarter in which he maintained his block on the perimeter. He and his Utah counterpart were both grabbing each other. It was another case of overreach, pun again not intended.
THE CONTEXT
Pac-12 officiating remains deeply broken. It is something the foremost chroniclers of the conference, such as John Canzano, keep writing about every season. People like Jon Wilner keep interviewing Merton Hanks and the other people involved in Pac-12 officiating. Promises continue to be made.
Nothing changes.
RULES
It’s not as though roughing the passer is a really complicated rule, either: Did the guy get hit with a helmet? Did the guy get hit on his helmet or in his neck area? Was the hit late? This is not rocket science. Pac-12 refs botched it twice.
BOTTOM LINE
This is why USC is leaving for the Big Ten.
POSTSCRIPT
Some USC fans think the Trojans shouldn’t play another game this season until Notre Dame. That’s not hyperbole.
ONE MORE THING
Any goodwill George Kliavkoff might have had with the USC fan base has now been exhausted. This is the cost of not fixing problems.
