Drew Kerekes

If you were to be asked to name the worst decision by a referee you’ve ever seen, what would come to your mind?

My answer would immediately be “Miami-Ohio State pass interference,” referring, of course, to the 2003 Fiesta Bowl overtime flag of pass interference that robbed the Hurricanes of a second-straight national championship. If you were to ask an LSU fan, it might be not giving Patrick Peterson the interception during the 2009 LSU-Alabama game. Mississippi State fans are probably still rightly sour of replay officials not checking on a clear fumble by Alabama running back Damion Harris during the opening drive of the MSU-Alabama game this year, or the phantom block in the back call that robbed MSU of a touchdown — though I’m not sure they’d contend either of those were the worst they’ve ever seen, unless they happen to be really young.

Bad calls are part of any sporting event that utilizes officials. Last year, I even wrote a piece about the five worst officiating decisions I’ve ever seen. I figure if I live a long life, that list will change many times. After Saturday night’s debacle in Nashville, it may be time for an update.

If I’m going to make a case for “worst call of all time by an official,” there usually needs to be a lot on the line that a bad call directly affects. That’s why I contend to this day the phantom pass interference call on Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, because it determined the outcome of a national championship game. That’s why I’m hesitant to say AJ Brown’s catch that was ruled not a catch is an all-time bad decision, because the most that was on the line in Ole Miss and Vanderbilt’s game Saturday was keeping the Commodores’ bowl hopes alive.

Still, when I step back and think about possible long-term consequences, I’m almost tempted to actually consider the non-catch ruling an all-time bad call.

Let’s rewind to late Saturday evening. Ole Miss and Vanderbilt were caught in a back-and-forth game that was tied 29-29 at the end of regulation. The Commodores got the ball first in overtime and scored a touchdown, meaning the Rebels would have to do the same to force a double-overtime. 

They did. Or, at least, they did at first. Brown, a future first-round pick in the NFL barring something unforeseen, caught a pass from Jordan Ta’amu on the right side of the end zone. Both feet landed, Brown tucked the ball to his right side, his right knee hit the ground, then his rear end and back hit the ground. Easy touchdown. Following Brown’s reception, the SEC replay officials decided to take a look at the play just to be sure.

No problem, right? All plays are subject to review, especially scoring plays that determine whether or not the game goes into double overtime. Once the SEC Network broadcast began showing the catch in slow motion, it appeared the ball was knocked out of Brown’s right hand by the Vanderbilt defensive back after Brown had already landed on the ground on his back.

“It doesn’t matter,” I thought. “Brown clearly had possession of the ball when his knee, then rear end, then back hit the ground. The play is dead right there.” It would have been akin to a defender knocking the ball out of a ball carrier’s hand after he reached his hand out to make sure the ball crossed the goal line plane. It doesn’t matter if the ball was knocked loose — once the ball crosses the plane, it’s a touchdown regardless of what happens afterward.

It was an easy call to uphold. Unfortunately, one of three things happened with the SEC replay officials: Either they collectively lost their minds, or they wanted to be done and go home, or they did decide to go home and instead put a troll in charge of replays once the overtime period started. Despite the play being ruled a touchdown, which presumably meant indisputable video evidence was needed to overturn the call, the SEC replay office determined the catch was not, in fact, a catch. Ole Miss then failed to score on fourth down, and Vanderbilt won the game.

Pandora’s box had been opened.

You see, this isn’t just about the result of Saturday’s game. People will point to numerous instances where the Rebels made it to the red zone without scoring a touchdown. They’ll say it never should have come down to a bad call in overtime. That’s fair. I’ve said before that good teams overcome bad officiating, and I believe it. I would probably have been much more upset at the call determining the outcome if there was an SEC title game berth on the line for either team.

But after listening to numerous people complain about the NFL’s often indecipherable criteria as to what constitutes a catch, I’m horrified at the possibility of what this call means for college football. We’ve had the targeting rule since 2013, and we still can’t come up with a common-sense way to implement it. We have the leaping penalty, where athletes can’t use their athleticism to jump up and block a field goal but running backs can leap over a defender. Now, SEC replay officials don’t know what a catch is.

This kind of silliness has been largely absent from the sport, but with the overturning of what any casual fan could tell was clearly a catch by Brown, I wonder if this is going to have the same kind of ripple effect it’s had in the NFL, where things became so convoluted that the league had to adopt a “simplified” catch criteria back in late March.

Hopefully I’m overreacting, and this is just an isolated incident. I’d hate to be hyperbolic and assign this as the “worst decision by officials ever” out of an emotional reaction to not wanting college football to go down the path of the NFL. But that call was so easy to make that it was made correctly at the time the play happened. If we’re suddenly going to overthink things to the point where clear catches are determined to be incomplete, then the sport will be worse off for it.

The best thing that could happen is the SEC office publicly apologizes to Ole Miss by admitted it messed up. That way, similar instances down the road can’t just go back and look at the Ole Miss-Vanderbilt tape and say, “Well, if that’s not a catch, then I guess this isn’t, either.”

Or we can just throw our hands up and say that we don’t know what a catch is. I certainly don’t after Saturday night. 

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.