Oct. 12, 1999
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The referee will normally designate the official on our sideline to speak to me when I have a question about a call. Very seldom do you get the opportunity to talk directly to the referee.
The pass interference call in the end zone on Deveron Harper during the Oklahoma game was huge. They would have had to kick the field goal, but the penalty gave them an automatic first down. There was a long hesitation and a lot of discussion between the officials. I called the official over to voice my complaint and to ask for an explanation of their discussion.
I was curious as to their interpretation of the rule. The referees indicated that Deveron made contact with the receiver when he was in the air attempting to intercept the pass. Everyone has the right to jump for the ball. You can jump for the football as long as you are playing the ball, which is what the officials were discussing.
I was more concerned with their interpretation of the rule than their call on that individual play. My reaction was in response to what they deemed pass interference. The fact is, both players can jump for the ball and if, while in the air, a collision takes, than it is not pass interference. While you are never going to be able to change a judgment call, a mechanics error is something that I feel needs to be discussed.
I am not going to comment on anything in order to gain a public relations advantage, nor will I blame the officials for a loss. I will not do that and I have never done that. The reality of our situation is that we have had a lot of calls affect the outcome of our games. At critical junctures we have had some unbelievable situations like Purdue not getting called for having twelve men on the field when we were punting with three minutes remaining in the game or the officials not calling the timeout that a Purdue player clearly signaled for with 26 seconds remaining.
This has been a unique season because of the number of game-changing calls that are worthy of discussion. My objections have not been an attempt to insinuate who is right and who is wrong.
We elected to use Big Ten officials because of the tremendous job they do evaluating themselves and each other. You are not going to change what has happened, but the evaluation process allows them to improve and learn. I do not think that the public forum is the appropriate place to make change and correct mistakes. We accomplish this by making a tape of questionable calls after each game and forwarding it to the Big Ten office.
A lot has been made about my public comments concerning officials. It is not out of the ordinary for coaches to do this. What is unusual is the number of controversial calls we had early on in the season.