[81alum]

This is what I said yesterday:

In addition to everything else that has been said, I do think the poor officiating hurt us badly in this game.  Ideally we would have played well enough to win in spite of it, but it was a lot to overcome.

1. On the pass to Dres Anderson for the 51 yard TD, Anderson simply shoved our defender out of the way, in obvious sight of the official, who did not call offensive pass interference.  That was a 7 point non-call.

2. The reason the bubble screens were so effective was that Utah was holding on virtually all of them, many of them blatant.

3. The roughing the passer call on Ben Gardner was at least a 4 point penalty.

4. The non-whistle on forward progress that cost us a fumble.

Were there calls or non calls that favored Stanford?  Perhaps, but these were very significant penalties that really changed the character of the game.

They will start replaying the game on Pac12 before long and then I will watch it a couple more times.  But my impression of the holding going on the bubble screens was that it was egregious.  You could see hunks of jersey in their blocking WR hands as our guys tried to escape to make a tackle.  The bubble screen seems to be built on the premise that refs don't call holds on WRs, only on linemen.

The Ben Gardner play was not quite as clear as some have made it out.  It was a bad call, not an egregious call.  He may have taken a full step after the QB released the ball, and perhaps he could have pulled up a bit more than he did.  But it was not like he took two steps, or targeted.

I think the worst call of the day, though, was allowing Dres Anderson to push his defender away so he could haul in the 51 yard TD.  The KZSU announcers had that one right.  Wait until you see it on replay.

[81alum]

This is what I said yesterday:

In addition to everything else that has been said, I do think the poor officiating hurt us badly in this game.  Ideally we would have played well enough to win in spite of it, but it was a lot to overcome.

1. On the pass to Dres Anderson for the 51 yard TD, Anderson simply shoved our defender out of the way, in obvious sight of the official, who did not call offensive pass interference.  That was a 7 point non-call.

2. The reason the bubble screens were so effective was that Utah was holding on virtually all of them, many of them blatant.

3. The roughing the passer call on Ben Gardner was at least a 4 point penalty.

4. The non-whistle on forward progress that cost us a fumble.

Were there calls or non calls that favored Stanford?  Perhaps, but these were very significant penalties that really changed the character of the game.

They will start replaying the game on Pac12 before long and then I will watch it a couple more times.  But my impression of the holding going on the bubble screens was that it was egregious.  You could see hunks of jersey in their blocking WR hands as our guys tried to escape to make a tackle.  The bubble screen seems to be built on the premise that refs don't call holds on WRs, only on linemen.

The Ben Gardner play was not quite as clear as some have made it out.  It was a bad call, not an egregious call.  He may have taken a full step after the QB released the ball, and perhaps he could have pulled up a bit more than he did.  But it was not like he took two steps, or targeted.

I think the worst call of the day, though, was allowing Dres Anderson to push his defender away so he could haul in the 51 yard TD.  The KZSU announcers had that one right.  Wait until you see it on replay.