Neal Brown weighs in on officiating after controversial end to Backyard Brawl vs. Pitt

After Saturday’s Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pitt, officiating became a hot topic of conversation. Panthers coach Pat Narduzzi spoke candidly about the referees in his postgame interview after a controversial ending, and Neal Brown weighed in during his weekly press conference.

Narduzzi said Pitt not only beat WVU, but “beat the officials, too” in comments that landed him a reprimand and a fine from the ACC on Monday. The Panthers got called for 12 flags for 112 yards while the Mountaineers got flagged seven times for 67 yards.

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Brown took a different avenue while speaking with reporters Monday. He pointed out how difficult it is to officiate football games, but admitted there are times he doesn’t agree with calls.

“What I would say on this is officiating a game’s really hard,” Brown said. “Like, it’s really, really hard. And I’ll never sit up here and say we lost a game because of officiating. I just don’t believe that ever happens, unless you’re the U.S. basketball [team] vs. Soviet Union or something like that – you could probably blame the officials. But for the most part, that’s not gonna be the case. It’s a really hard game to officiate. We’ve got a bunch of different teams in our league now. We’ve gone to 16 teams in our league. So we’ve got way more crews, so our officiating is more spread out and we’ve got a bunch of new guys that are in our league.

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“Do I believe it was holding? Absolutely not. And it was a critical, critical play in the game. But it also is a difficult play to officiate.”

Neal Brown: ‘We should always err on not throwing’ the flag

As for when he thinks officials should throw their flags, Neal Brown said he thinks it should have to be clear to do so. He also noted the technique offensive lineman Wyatt Milum used on the play in which he was flagged, which came on a touchdown pass from Garrett Greene to Hudson Clement. The game ended on a blocked punt, which gave Pitt the lead.

While Brown understood why the referees called the penalty – Milum ended up on top of the defender – he also pointed out the need for it to be a clear foul. Upon review, he also saw it didn’t look much like a hold to be worth a penalty.

“Philosophically, where I think we should be is, we should always err on not throwing,” Brown said. “We should not err on throwing the flag. We should always err on not throwing. Now, that play – and we teach this, along with most offensive line coaches and most NFL o-line coaches – is when a defensive lineman’s trying to long-arm you, you chop hands to replace. Not the only move. That’s not the only move we teach. But we do do that. And to me, is if you call holding and the defensive lineman has his head down, you’re rewarding a negative play because the defense is not coaching that. In that particular play, it was really hard.

“I see what the center judge sees. The guy goes down and Wyatt’s on top of him. But it was not a hold. He never grabbed him. He chopped his hands, he lost momentum, he went down and then, Wyatt does what he’s supposed to do. So was it a hold? I don’t believe so. Do I understand, maybe, why it was called? I do. I don’t agree with it, but I do understand. But philosophically, I just think we should always err on not throwing unless it’s a really, really clear penalty.”