Look, we’re not whining or crying about what transpired in the desert on Saturday night (okay, maybe a little), but we are finding more and more well-respected officiating experts come to the defense of what happened with Ohio State over the weekend.
There were a handful of controversial calls over the course of the Fiesta Bowl, but the one everyone continues to talk about more than others is the scoop and score TD when Jeff Okudah dislodged the ball from Clemson receiver Justyn Ross. Safety Jordan Fuller quickly picked it up and ran it in for a go-ahead touchdown and all of Buckeye Nation celebrated, even after watching the slow-motion replay.
But wait.
Somehow, someway, the SEC officiating crew overturned the call and took points off the board.
Since then, Clemson fans have complained about the outcry over the perceived overreach by the replay booth official, but it’s clear Ohio State had fans have a leg to stand on. The latest officiating expert to come out and say the call should have never been overturned is the Big Ten Supervisor of Officials Bill Carollo.
Carollo, when talking to CBS Sports couldn’t believe the call was overturned.
“I haven’t talked to anybody who thought it was an incomplete pass,” Carollo told CBS. “To reverse it, it has to be really obvious.”
Again it cannot be stressed enough that Ohio State could have won this thing by taking care of missed opportunities, but you can now add another well-respected officiating expert who has over 30 years of experience with officiating to the growing number of folks that are perplexed on what happened with this SEC crew.
