Nick Saban Explains What Happened on Controversial Call in Texas Game
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — With just under 10 minutes to go in the third quarter of Alabama's 20-19 win over Texas, the Crimson Tide offense was pinned up against its own end zone. The Longhorns defense pressured Alabama quarterback Bryce Young into the end zone, but he managed to get the ball away just in time? Or did he?
College football fans and analysts have been dissecting the play since it happened. The play looked like it could have been a safety, but the officials on the field called roughing the passer with targeting, meaning Alabama would get a first down. After review, it was neither intentional grounding or targeting, and was ruled an incomplete pass. Alabama punted the ball from its own end zone, giving Texas good field position at the 39.
After the game, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said it was "definitely intentional grounding." Monday, Alabama head coach Nick Saban offered up the explanation he was given, or not given, by the Big 12 officials at Saturday's game.
"Well, first of all, the way they called the play— roughing the quarterback with targeting— they can't review roughing the quarterback," Saban said. "It’s non-reviewable. But they did. So they not only took off the targeting, which there wasn’t any targeting. Bryce was not down when he threw the ball. One of their players actually touched the ball. So that didn’t make it intentional grounding. And we did have a player in the vicinity. Jase McClellan was in the vicinity. So we never got it explained really well, but I’m giving you the facts. Maybe it just got announced wrong, that it was roughing the passer with targeting. They can review targeting, but not roughing the passer.
"So I don’t know what happened with all that. It kind of is what it is. But I'm not complaining about it. I'm not criticizing anyone. I'm just saying, you asked me what happened, how it got explained to me. That’s basically what got explained to me."
With the good field position after the punt, Texas went on to take the lead for the first time in the game at 13-10. The Longhorns would tack on another field goal at the beginning of the fourth quarter to make it 16-10 before Young worked his fourth quarter magic to lead Alabama to the comeback victory.
