Judgement calls where the Official is the only one with the needed angle are hard to dispute. From his angle he is the only one to see where the contact is and by the way the defenders head dips, I believe the WR catches the face mask when pushing off. Now the argument can be made that it's too technical of a call, but that is for the B1G to decide and communicate to the coach and officials.
I see what you mean. I still feel like it was too minor to call, because, I prefer football with a bit more physicality. Yet, if the same foul is called on the D, then refs should call that on the O as well.
I’d prefer a no call generally because if that little contact is pass interference it is opening a can of worms that cause referees to become incredibly inconsistent at enforcement
The call was made by the referee that was closest to the play and had the best angle. In fact, he had the best vantage point of anyone in the entire stadium, including any camera. That's how you make the call.
There was a clip on the Internet that clearly showed the Purdue receiver stiff-arming the MN defender, and the Gopher tried to push his arm away. This happened close to the goal line and was not shown on almost every replay of the action. The Gopher lost stride and the gap between them lengthened. The call was correct, though sports talk radio around the country made it an issue.
It was really annoying hearing all those commentators talking about how Purdue got the shaft on the call. I wonder if any of them came to a different conclusion after seeing the push off. I have seen no retractions on their comments myself.
I thought that was the right call after seeing the second look at it during the game.
Completely disagree. He barely touched the guy. The defender fell off on his own not due to jefferson pushing.
My feeling is if you put your hands on the guy you put the play in the hands of the official's judgement. Jefferson's IMO was more egregious than Purdue player. Jefferson puts two hand on guys back which allowed him to go in the opposite direction of the defender.
You realize it was their feet getting tangled that caused the stumble, right? There's no way a gentle hand on the db's back would make him stumble like that. If that touch is OPI, then there's OPI on every single play in the NFL. That said, I can see how the ref watching that, depending on the angle, could have thought it was OPI because of the stumble happening right as Jefferson pulls his hands back.
