Mark Richt, the former head coach of Georgia football, is not pleased. To be fair, the dubious judgement made by the officials in the second half infuriated almost every Georgia fan and present employee, but Richt, the Georgia legend that he is, was furious.
By now, everyone is aware of the order of events.During the second half, Carson Beck threw an interception that was first disallowed because Texas had been given a pass interference penalty. By hurling debris onto the field, the irate Longhorns supporters caused the game to be postponed. The referees gathered during that pause and raised the pass interference flag, allowing the interception to remain in place.
I have never encountered that before, and Richt doesn’t seem to have either.
Officials frequently make poor calls; at this point, it’s just a part of the game. However, Richt could not help but comment on the issue because it was almost egregious.
Richt stated via dawgnation.com, “If you’re going to make the call, make the call, if you blow it, you blow it, everybody does that from time to time.” “However, given the reaction of the fans and the amount of time that passed, the timing of their so-called change of heart was highly suspicious.”
“You realise that after a brief conversation, they might raise a flag and say no flag, but I would have been a little annoyed too to have to wait that long and have a call that important changed.”
Richt did a wonderful job of explaining his frustrations. In most games, a flag is thrown at one point, but the referees decide to pick it up without penalising either team. When this occurs within 30 seconds of the flag being thrown, nobody really objects. However, as Richt points out, the timing of this situation is the issue.
In preparation for their next play, Georgia was set to snap the ball. In reality, if the Texas supporters hadn’t caused the delay, they would have been able to get the snap off without the referees’ help. The officials then made the decision to reverse their call after all that extra time had passed while everyone waited to clear the pitch. Between the flag being thrown, the penalty yards being marked off, both teams getting ready for the next play, and Texas supporters hurling trash onto the field, we’re talking about many minutes at this point. That alone must have taken five to ten minutes.
Given the significance of the call, an official cannot ignore a flag after that amount of time.
Two plays later, Texas scored to narrow the advantage to 23-15, but fortunately, it didn’t matter since Georgia held on to win 30-15. Since what happened during this unusual 10-minute period was unfair and shouldn’t have been permitted, hopefully this will serve as a lesson for all officials.
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