There's a few things here:
1. It was an obvious catch and fumble. This was the worst non-overturn by replay I've ever seen, and I can't even remember something close. Usually, there's at least some shade of gray - ball with a slight bobble, only 1 1/2 steps, something that could lead to an inexplicable non-overturn - but on this play there was nothing. At this point, I was wondering what the grounds were for playing a game under protest. Not that I would've even advocated doing so, but I was so exasperated because...what got me is the Back Judge had the worst angle of the play(it was right in front of him but our player would have blocked any vision he would have had) so he blew his whistle without seeing the play and just thought he saw it. At half they must have looked at it and said oops we Fadgered that one and allowed for the roughing the kicker and the personal foul that extended our drive int he 2nd half. I would say give us the fumble and the chance to score. it eliminates their FG and we most likely score changing the whole game.
2. This came only a few plays after the "fumble" by Cobb that also should've been overturned. Now here, I wasn't quite as irate as even though the stadium replay showed the ball coming out because A. it was in the middle of players with mostly bad camera angles B. it's possible the ball was wiggling slightly before Cobb's elbow hit the turf (couldn't really see it or not on the board
yeah this goes with the above. how do you call a fumble without seeing the play? they woudl have had to be inside the scrum to see what happened and in fact you could do that in almost every pile up on the field.
3. What's with the 3 illegal formation penalties on XPs (2 on us, 1 on Purdue)? This is like the 3 illegal linemen downfield calls last week. Illegal formation is something you could pretty much call on just about every XP/FG if you wanted to. Moreover, the XP is a near-automatic play. Re-running it just allows for injuries. Stupid, stupid, point of emphasis if that's what it was. Yes, yes, we should've made the XP from 5 yards back, but seriously, we shouldn't have had to.
on replay i think they called the one penalty on Pirsig and his butt was so far back. Ref dude you are supposed to look at the helmets and make sure they are at the level of the center. in this case due to Pirsig's long body his head was where it was supposed to and it just looks odd. the other one on Campion was wrong too and not sure what the refs are trying to point out.
4. The "fumble" by Leidner that did get overturned on replay was ludicrous. Leidner almost had 2 knees down the ball came out so late. Thankfully the booth got this one right, but it shouldn't have gone that far.
This was the worst reffed game I can remember. They pay these guys but they weren't even watching close enough on at least 3 key plays to correctly identify a fumble or not, and then the ridiculous emphasis on formation on XPs. What a joke. Thank goodness we won or I'd really be pissed.
