USC loses to Utah as Pac-12 football officiating rears its ugly head
SALT LAKE CITY - Here we go again.
In what should have been a celebration of two really talented Pac-12 football teams playing a highly entertaining game on Saturday night in Salt Lake City, much of the focus the morning after is on the poor officiating.
No. 7 USC lost 43-42 to No. 20 Utah in what was — at best — an embarrassing performance by the officials.
The Pac-12 is already the least relevant Power Five conference - there's a reason why USC and UCLA are leaving - and prime-time national television performances like this just deepen that perception.
How bad were the officials? FOX college football analyst Brock Huard was openly questioning the officials on the national broadcast all game.
Arguably the worst call of the game - and the one that significantly altered the game - was the roughing the passer call on Stanley Ta’ufo’ou late in the first quarter. The Trojans were leading 14-0 and threatening to run away with the game. Utah quarterback Cam Rising threw a jump ball into the end zone on a third-and-long, and Calen Bullock came up with an interception.
The Trojans should've had the ball on the 20-yard line, leading 14-0. Instead, the officials called roughing the passer, giving Utah a first down on the 12-yard line. They scored on the next play.
What was Huard's reaction to the call on national television? "Get out of here. Get out of here! He doesn't drive him into the ground, he doesn't hit him in the head. He pushes him in the back. What are we doing here?"
Penalties were an issue all night for the Trojans, who totaled 12 flags for 93 yards - but it easily felt like more than that. A second questionable roughing the passer call in the fourth quarter led to a string of several more “let them play” penalties, including a defensive pass interference call on a pass that landed about a three-point shot outside the back of the end zone, leading to a first-and-goal from the one yard line that Rising easily sneaked in for the Utes’ second penalty-assisted touchdown.
USC fans appropriately feel “robbed,” or worse, depending on the medium of the complaint, and USC coach Lincoln Riley did acknowledge postgame that the officiating was sub-par in this one; however, he labeled USC as a “no-excuse program” and stated the officiating was not the reason his Trojans lost this game.
“The officiating was really poor tonight, but we still should’ve won the game, like that’s part of football," Riley said. "That’s part of football in general, you’re gonna have some nights where the calls don’t go your way, and they certainly did not tonight, but you still find a way, and I thought we continued to keep our composure and fight, and we still should’ve won the game."
“I’m not gonna be the guy up here saying we lost the game because of the officiating, because we didn’t. We’re not gonna be excuse makers here. It was just another thing that we had to overcome tonight, and we were close to getting it done, but just not quite enough.”
The last minute of the first half felt like it lasted about 45 real-time minutes between booth review, confusion surrounding the game clock, and a moment where the officials couldn’t figure out whether a review-induced clock runoff was needed or if the Utes had spent a timeout. Throw in a few unnecessary targeting reviews and it all felt like an amateur production.
Finally, during the game’s last drive, USC was granted a timeout in the middle of a play, which negated the time that should have expired on a play that ultimately resulted in defensive pass interference.
The Pac-12 has to do better.
