The BYU Cougars can’t seem to get through a football game without the officials becoming the story.
For the third straight week, a BYU game was mired in controversy. This time it came in a 27-20 win over the Arizona State Sun Devils on Halloween at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
However, the Big 12 didn’t stay quiet for long.
Hours after the final whistle, the conference released a statement admitting that its replay officials got a first-quarter BYU touchdown wrong, according to On3’s Brett McMurphy.
Big 12 Admits BYU Touchdown Shouldn’t Have Counted
BYU faced a second-and-goal from the Arizona State 1-yard line on its opening drive. Quarterback Bear Bachmeier was initially ruled down short of the goal line.
Officials then stepped in. They determined after video replay that Bachmeier lost the ball before his forward progress was stopped, and that running back Sione Moa recovered it at the 2-yard line before carrying it into the end zone.
After a second review, officials gave Moa the touchdown, putting BYU up 7-0. There was just one problem: the rule book says otherwise.
“At 11:27 in the first period of the Arizona State-BYU game, Big 12 Replay Officials stopped the game to review possession by BYU. The play showed that the runner lost possession
“The play showed that the runner lost possession of the ball prior to the forward progress spot, and the ball was recovered by another BYU player at the two-yard line and he was awarded a touchdown,” the Big 12 statement read.
“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.’ Replay was incorrect in awarding a score. The correct ruling should have been BYU ball for a third-and-goal attempt from the 2-yard line.”
In other words, BYU should have kept the ball, but not the six points.
Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham knew the rule and argued it with officials on the sideline. After the game, he made it clear who he was blaming, and it wasn’t the crew on the field.
“I was trying to argue that he does have the right to recover it post-whistle, but that’s not a clear advancement, which means the ball should be at the 3,” Dillingham said. “Obviously, that wasn’t what happened. It’s not the officials’ fault. Those officials don’t have say in that. That’s all back home.”
BYU Has Been Front-and-Center in the Big 12’s Officiating Mess
The call was so bad that Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira called it out during the broadcast.
“This is not the type of situation that you have when a runner steps out of bounds where you can continue in action,” Pereira said on the broadcast. “This was a player that recovered the ball and got up in the field of play. The ruling on the field was the runner was down initially.
“And if that’s the case, you’ve ruled it dead. You can give a recovery, but you can’t give an advance, unless you’ve come up with a new rule here, which I’m not too sure you can really do.”
It’s also not the first time the Big 12 has had to clean up after a BYU game.
In Week 7, the conference admitted its replay crew wrongly ended BYU’s 28-24 upset of No. 2 Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish’s final pass hit the turf with one second still on the clock, and the Big 12 said Notre Dame should have gotten another play. Many also thought BYU should have been flagged for pass interference on that play.
A week later, the Cougars were on the other end of it. In their 39-31 double-overtime loss at UCF, officials picked up a facemask flag at the end of regulation and enforced a 10-second runoff. That took away UCF’s chance at a fourth-down kick.
Then BYU defensive end Kendal Wall was called for a controversial roughing-the-kicker penalty in the second overtime. That flag set up the Knights’ game-winning touchdown.
Fox’s Robert Griffin III didn’t mince words about the concerning pattern with the officiating.
“This is three weeks in a row where we’ve had Big 12 officials just making up rules as they go,” Griffin said.
Big 12 Breaks Silence on BYU-Arizona State Controversy