Officiating crew should be suspended after 125th Big Game for player safety

On Saturday, Cal football defeated Stanford 27-20 to win the 125th Big Game in Berkeley. It was a hard fought, passionate game in which the Bears came from 17-6 down in the 4th quarter to win. The Bears played the better game and deserved to win The Axe. I need to establish that up front before I write what I’m about to write.

I also need to add that I rarely write articles dedicated to criticizing officials as I know they have really difficult jobs. Nobody likes them, they get blamed by both teams throughout the game, etc. Missed calls are part of the game and at the end of every game both teams can point to different missed calls that affected them. It’s part of the game and you have to play through them. That said, when we are talking about keeping players safe, I do think it’s important that officials be held to high standards. If officials don’t do their jobs properly, players could get hurt and that is not something anyone should want.

Using all of that as a springboard, there is one sequence that I don’t think is getting talked about enough and should be in the name of player safety and proper adjudication of the rules. On 1st and 5 late in the 2nd quarter, Cal quarterback Jack Plummer threw an interception to Stanford safety Alaka’i Gilman in the end zone with 2:21 to go until halftime. Gilman rolled to the ground after completing the interception and he also stepped out of bounds afterwards in the endzone, clearly making the play dead.

In celebration of his interception, Gilman ran towards the Stanford sideline with enthusiasm before getting tackled to the ground from behind by Cal offensive lineman T.J. Session. Immediately, the announcers correctly called for a penalty flag as it was clear as day that it was a late hit. Stanford edge David Bailey rightfully went after Session for hitting Gilman and then a mini fight broke out among both sides. Stanford cornerback Kyu Blu Kelly was also asking for a flag, confused of as to how his teammate was allowed to get completely blindsided and tackled after the play was clearly dead.

Rather than throwing a flag, the officials merely blew their whistles, broke up the fight, and acted as if what had just happened didn’t happen. Stanford got the ball on their own 20 yard line as opposed to the 35 yard line. 2:21 was still on the clock because, um, well, all this happened with the play being dead.

So, to quickly recap: A player was allowed to perform a blatant late hit on an opposing player that occurred well after the play was blown dead. No penalty. No ejection. Nothing. If you step back and think about it, that’s wild. I asked people in the press box in real time how that wasn’t a penalty and nobody knew. Upon reviewing the tape several times, I find it to be even more mind boggling that a flag wasn’t called.

With all of this being established on tape (you can watch it here at the 11:00-11:20 mark), I think the entire officiating crew should be suspended for the rest of the season. I don’t care how many games they’ve officiated, how experienced they are, what their intentions were, etc. If you allow a blatant late hit to occur in a game, that’s gotta be grounds for some sort of penalty for the officiating crew. You cannot say you care about player safety if you allow officials to be so careless in their officiating of the game.

Below are five reasons why the crew needs to be suspended for the rest of the year.

#1. The tackle came from behind and Gilman was not expecting it: Getting tackled is dangerous enough if you know a tackle is coming. But getting tackled/blindsided when a play is over has the potential to be really dangerous. Gilman could have gotten really hurt on that play, costing him next week’s game against BYU or maybe even spring ball/part of next season. If you think that’s an exaggeration, Stanford already lost a key player for the season due to a late hit when Casey Filkins went down against Arizona State a few games back. Late hits have to be taken seriously. And this late hit even more so because it happened after the play was dead and the player was simply running over to the sideline in celebration.

#2. T.J. Session is much bigger than Alaka’i Gilman: T.J. Session is a 6’4”, 300 pound offensive lineman while Alaka’i Gilman is a 5’9”, 192 pound safety. If you have taken a basic physics class, you know that force equals mass times acceleration. Session is capable of tackling with a lot of force and if he’s going after a little guy like Gilman, he could do a lot of damage. This isn’t to say that if Session was smaller, that should change that call. A late hit is a late hit. But when it’s a big guy hitting a little guy, that just magnifies the need for a flag even more.

#3. Alaka’i Gilman could have gotten seriously hurt: This point is really a combination of points #1 and #2. But it needs to be emphasized in bold. What if Gilman had torn an ACL on that play? What if he had fractured a bone? What if he suffered a concussion? The list of potential injuries goes on and on. Had he suffered a serious injury, it would have happened at the hands of a blatant late hit that the officials allowed to happen for no reason other than just plain incompetence and recklessness. And the fact that Gilman wasn’t hurt shouldn’t change the calculus at all. You cannot let the refs off the hook because he wasn’t hurt.

#4. It’s a rivalry game: If you are a competent officiating crew that knows anything about sports, you know that rivalry games frequently get heated. Guys are extra chippy. It’s the nature of sports. Session clearly was caught up in the emotion of Big Game and did something stupid. That doesn’t make him a bad person or anything. I certainly don’t think he was intending to hurt Gilman. But, he did tackle a player long after the play was over and if you don’t throw a flag on a play like that, especially with it being a rivalry game, you are asking for even crazier stuff to then happen.

Officials have to maintain order. Allowing such a hit to happen without penalty flies in the face of maintaining order. It’s a total disregard for doing your job the way you ought to be doing it. As one of my subscribers put it, it’s malpractice.

#5. It had an impact on the outcome of the game itself: I’m not taking anything away from Cal’s 27-20 victory in the 125th Big Game. Cal deserved to keep The Axe in Berkeley. They played the better game. Jaydn Ott had an amazing second half and really came through for his team. Hats off to him and the rest of the Golden Bears.

That said, by not throwing a flag, Stanford was robbed of 15 yards and got the ball on the 20 instead of the 35 yard line. If Stanford had those extra 15 yards, they might have gotten into field goal range and made it a 13-6 lead at halftime. After all, they did get it to the Cal 48 yard line on that drive.

If the ball gets to the Cal 33 yard line, that’s a 50 yard kick for Joshua Karty. And since he made a 61 yard kick to end the game, one has to like his chances to make a 50 yarder before halftime. If it’s a 13-6 lead for Stanford at halftime, that means Stanford enters halftime with a bit more momentum and juice having scored once more before halftime. It also means it becomes a 20-6 lead for Stanford entering the 4th quarter after Elijah Higgins’ touchdown as opposed to a 17-6 lead. That means when Cal went up 20-17 after Ashton Daniels’ fumble that was returned for a touchdown by Jackson Sirmon, it would have actually been a 20-20 game with 9:54 to go and Stanford having the ball. That’s a very different situation.

Being tied as opposed to down by three may have affected the play calling Stanford had and it certainly would have had an impact on the psyche of the players. They may have played a bit calmer, more relaxed, and had an attitude of hey, we got this. Being tied as opposed to being down definitely has an impact on player psyche.

And then if we’re talking about the end of the game, if Stanford is down by 7 as opposed to down by 10 with 58 seconds to go, now we’re talking about them having a chance to tie the game up and force overtime. By not having those three points, the game was basically over at that point. If it’s a one possession game, that changes the equation entirely.

This isn’t to say Stanford wins the game if a flag is called for the late hit that Session had on Gilman. That flag not getting called in no way lets Stanford off the hook. They booted this game.

But the fact that it could have had such an impact as described above is icing on the cake for why this crew should be suspended. Their recklessness most importantly threatened player safety and then for good measure, it also had an impact on the outcome of the game itself.

Conclusion: When adding this all up, I think it’s clear that the officiating crew has a lot of explaining to do on just why no flag was called on the hit that Session had on Gilman. And the classic “we just missed it” excuse doesn’t cut it because it happened in front of all of our eyes. The fans saw it, the announcers saw it, we all saw it. And that means the refs saw it and rather than throwing a flag and making the right call in the name of player safety and being fair, they decided to act like it just didn’t happen as if it didn’t matter at all.

If refs are going to be tossing players out for endangering the safety of other players, the same standard should be applied to them as well if they endanger the safety of players. It’s that simple.

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