Officiating expert rips UVA, Miami crew for missed blatant targeting
The 2021 college football season has been filled with complaints about officiating, and Thursday night’s UVA–Miami game was no exception.
Former NFL referee Terry McAulay, who currently serves as a rules expert for Sunday Night Football and Notre Dame home games on NBC, offered a critique of a crew’s no-call situation late in the close contest between the Cavaliers and the Hurricanes.
On third-and-5 with 5:47 remaining, UVA quarterback Brennan Armstrong threw an incomplete pass to receiver Dontayvion Wicks. Miami’s Gurvan Hall Jr. came flying in, leading with the crown of his helmet, to break up the pass. There was no flag on the play.
McAulay followed the criticism on Twitter with a call to have Steve Shaw, the NCAA National Coordinator of Officials, visit ESPN’s College GameDay “to explain the wild inconsistencies in applying the rule this season.”
As a result of the no-call, UVA was forced to punt the ball back to the Hurricanes, and they took it down the field to set up a potential game-winning 33-yard field goal, which was ultimately missed by kicker Andres Borregales.
The final score was 30-28 with the Cavaliers coming out on top to improve to 3-2 on the season, while Miami fell to 1-3. This is the first time the Hurricanes have lost three games in September since 1997.
The NCAA has gotten heat for the rule all season
Seemingly every week there is a new controversial conversation ongoing concerning targeting. Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly voiced his frustration with the lack of consistency around the calls last weekend in the Irish’s game against Wisconsin.
On Saturday, Irish safety Kyle Hamilton was “buried” on a punt return by multiple Wisconsin defenders. Kelly thought that the play should have been flagged, and he took a couple of steps onto the field to talk to officials. Officials then flagged Kelly for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the now-winningest coach in Irish history sounded off earlier this week about the situation.
“When two guys take a run at somebody, I guess that’s not targeting somebody,” Kelly said to reporters on Monday. “But if you try to stop someone from going into the end zone, that’s targeting. We just don’t have it right yet. Your eyes should tell you what’s going on in the game, but sometimes we hide behind the rule book. It’s just, it wasn’t officiated in the manner that I thought it should have been. So, they thought that because I went three feet out on the field that I should get a flag for them not officiating it correctly.”