I'm unhappy with the refs, but I'm even more unhappy with Charlie Strong. The head coach of a major football program should never ever lose control and get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, no matter how bad the officiating is. I am starting to agree with those who believe that he and his staff are in over their heads at Texas. With TCU, Oklahoma and Kansas State next...a 1-6 start seems likely.
I only saw the 4th quarter but wow, that was some bad officiating. How do you give possession to OkSt when three Longhorns are on the ball and there's no clear possession? In the replay, it looked like Walsh had a hand on the ball but Duke Thomas had his arms around it. Then the phantom defensive holding call. I was livid after that, even the commentators were confused. The refs gifted OkSt the first FG to tie. And then special teams screw it all up again. Pathetic.
Does anyone know the rule to this? How does a DT get called for defensive holding on a running play when he's pushed back 8 yards downfield and tackled?
Texas fell to 1-3 on the season, the worst start for the school since 1956. It's the first time Texas has ever suffered 3 losses before the end of September.
It's a tough time to be a UT football fan. I will continue to support the team through this continued rough stretch, but I still hate losing. The fans who actually show up to the games continue to be supportive, and almost everyone stayed for the school song today (which I guess could be a symptom of shock, but nonetheless). There are plenty of signs of improvement. The offense was awful without Perkins on the line. I believe Hutchins was his replacement after Perkins got hurt with 5 mins left in the 3rd, and the guy couldn't block anyone to save his life. Also, I have no idea why we start Bonney at CB. Boyd and Hill should start every game. I know Haines had an interception (only because he was way out of position), but the guy is slow and can't keep up with any WRs that are halfway decent. Vaccaro is raw but should play a lot more.
What did Strong do to get the unsportsmanlike penalty? You don't see that very often. I realize the officiating was poor. But that penalty came at a bad time.
When I think about how I would have reacted in that situation, I can't blame Strong. It was the worst call I've ever seen. Can anyone recall a single time they've seen a DT get called for holding on an HB dive? I certainly can't.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>For first time in history, Texas has lost 3 games in the month of September.</p>— Gil Brandt (@Gil_Brandt) <a href="https://twitter.com/Gil_Brandt/status/647968879705100288" data-datetime="2015-09-27T02:59:54+00:00">September 27, 2015</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Pretty interesting article: http://www.barkingcarnival.com/2015...rrupt-officiating-crew-buries-texas-longhorns
Yes, there were a lot of calls against the Longhorns. But calling the Refs corrupt or racist is going too far in my opinion. We see bad calls all the time, in all sports. Sometimes one team gets more bad calls. It happens. Calling the Big 12 a backwater league seems strange since UT was the school that had the most to do with creating the conference. The officiating was not good. However, I doubt there was any criminal intent involved.
I think the writer's main point is that we lost every possible subjective call, and that is extremely unusual. Are there sour grapes involved? Sure. But I think to write it off as just venting is the wrong way to look at it.
I generally agree, but I will say this was different than the usual bad calls. Normally, bad calls are penalties that are missed or borderline calls that could have been ignored or called differently. But here, there were at least 2 critical plays that were completely made up. Penalties were called when there was not even a hint of a penalty occurring - in one case, it wouldn't even make sense for a penalty to be possible in that situation (the defensive holding at the end). That's a bit more unusual. I agree that inferring any kind of intent or racism is unsupported and far-fetched. But these were also not your normal missed calls or bad calls. And to have a few of those combined with every subjective call going one way does raise some eyebrows.
