Refs, Les Miles help Alabama beat LSU
Let’s get this out of the way first: Alabama is better than LSU. They play better defense, have more big-time playmakers like Julio Jones and Mark Ingram, and they’re a more complete team overall.
That said, the officiating in Alabama’s 24-15 win on Saturday was some of the worst in college football this season. And that’s saying a lot given how bad the officiating has been this year in the SEC.
Crimson Tide fans can spin it as much as they want, but Patrick Peterson intercepted that pass in the second half. He not only got one foot down, but two and the refs still got the call wrong. The play might not have wound up being a game-changing moment, but the bottom line is that ‘Bama got a field goal out of the deal, which made it a two-score game late in the fourth.
Granted, even if the call went LSU’s way, the Tigers were still losing in an obvious passing situation and might have still had trouble moving the ball. Plus, they still allowed ‘Bama to convert on a 3rd and 6 to pick up the first day.
Still, the call was wrong. It should have been an interception, it should have been LSU’s ball and the Tigers still should have had the opportunity to march up the field and score.
Speaking of bad calls, Les Miles had a few himself. He made a poor decision to go for two after LSU had taken the lead on a Stevan Ridley 8-yard touchdown run. His decision to go for two instead of going up 16-10 was dumb, but not as dumb as the poor clock management in the fourth quarter and a decision to punt on 4th and inches with no timeouts.
LSU deserved better from the refs and Miles tonight.
Monday Update: John Paulsen has posted screenshots of Peterson’s interception.
Posted in: College Football
Tags: 2009 College Football Week 10, college football scores week 10 2009, college football week 10 scoreboard, Julio Jones, Les Miles, LSU Alabama, LSU Alabama bad call, LSU Alabama interception, LSU Alabama scores, LSU screwed by refs, LSU vs. Alabama, Mark Ingram, Patrick Peterson, SEC bad officiating, SEC officiating
As a fan of college football,I viewed that particular call over and over again after the game. The first several times I viewed it I thought his foot was right on the line and I wasn’t sure if he really had possession.After several more views I decided that perhaps his toes did touch maybe one-half of an inch on the field of play. What I did discover through this process is that viewing the replay could not have been convincing enough to change the call. Alabama won in every category, they had a total of 452 yards to the Tigers 253 yards,Alabama had more rushing yards,more passing yards and 11 more first downs than the tigers. There will always be close calls that’s the nature of the game, but clearly Alabama was the better team.Now what the (bleep bleep bleep) happened to my Ducks today?
Bill, You pathetic homer. Everyone saw the play.
Bama sucks – especially the QB. What about the helmet hit to Jordan Jefferson when the ref was standing right in front of the play – another obvious call was not made.
Break out the violins,there was several penalties that should have been called against the Tigers also,if your looking for perfection from the referees on either side of the ball you obviously live in La-La land and have unrealistic expectations
Yea everyone saw the play (including me) and it was a very close call to make.What about the call in the first quarter when the Alabama player was clearly inbounds but the replay booth was not working, so the call on the field was not reviewed? That would have most likely resulted in Alabama getting 7 more points. Boo-hoo-hoo what a bunch of spoiled babies.Does(billsahomer) need some tissue to wipe his eyes with?
Officiating is never perfect,if you analyzed every single play you would probably find several penalties that wasn’t called against both teams.The fact is Alabama was the better team today and from what I saw should have scored at least 10 more points however “should have, could have, what if” belongs in the whining camp of the discontented sore losers.There is not a college game I watch where I don’t see at least one bad call or a penalty that is not called at all, and that includes college games from every conference. It doesn’t the game is fixed, it just means the referees are human, people need to get over it.So Alabama beat LSU, is undefeated and headed to the SEC championship, I guess that makes some people angry. Blaming the refs is just their way of compensating for their teams lackadaisical performance.
Well I watched that play. I don’t know if his toe was in or out, but what I do know is. That when you make the move to tuck it under the arm they consider it juggelin the ball,I’ve seen it week after week, if he would have just held it with his two hands he might have got it. But you know, in this game I did find out one thing, that if your beaten on a route you should just trip the guy and its not considered pass interfearance…Alabama beat the hell out of this LSU squad. Every other play they had to come in and scape and LSU player off the turf and call for a medic,,,It’s a given that their is more humity in the air in Baton Rouge and it was dryer in Tusc,, alas the cramps but damn , are you kidding me, they were hitting the ground all over the place,,, the conditioning on that LSU squad didn’t look very well………they got the hell beat out of them,,,,,
WTF? It’s juggling the ball when they tuck it? Who the fuck told you that? Tucking the ball is tucking the ball. It has nothing to do with possession. You can catch the ball with one hand then hold it over your head as you run toward the end zone and it’s possession all the way. You never have to tuck and nothing changes if you do. There was one angle that they showed ONCE. Why the fuck CBS would do that I don’t know but it was the PERFECT angle from behind. You could see everything. He clearly had possession with BOTH feet in and only a damned liar would deny he had one foot in.
HORRIBLE CALL.
I don’t believe it was a horrible call,his foot appeared to very very close to the line and I thought maybe he never had possession when they first replayed it. If you look at it over and over it does seem that his scraped the field inbounds with his foot, but even then it is very close to the line.
One of the basic rules involving instant replay is that there be indisputable video evidence that the call was incorrect to reverse the on-field ruling. If there is any doubt after reviewing the play then the play is not reversed.
Like the above poster pointed out,if you were to look closely at every play during the LSU/Alabama game, you would probably discover that there were missed penalties on both sides of the ball. So in effect to say that a very close call was the sole reason for the tigers loss is a product of a vivid imagination and a little anger at the results of the game.
Lets just say that some of those missed penalties that should have gone against the tigers were in fact called, does that assure that Alabama would have won any more than the interception ruling means that LSU would have won? I noticed several penalties that should have gone against Alabama including a face mask.I also noticed several interference calls that should have gone against LSU and several other questionable plays by LSU that wasn’t called. I guess if Alabama would have lost I could be bitching about those missed calls now, what point would it serve?
You can blame the loss on Patrick Petersons leg cramps,the missed two point conversion,Brandon Taylors missed tackle that allowed the Julio Jones 73 yard touchdown,Daniel Graff running into the Alabama punter,the instant replay call, etc..
Keep in mind that Alabama still had a third-and-7 after the instant replay call and LSU could not prevent them from getting a first down.
Alabama winning doesn’t make it a better team. You guys do realize we lost Jefferson and Scott right, and then you have Peterson who shut Julio out ALL GAME, out for an instance, and then Julio gets that 73 yard touchdown. Watch the game, our team is clearly better, we lost players :p.
Usually when a team loses a game it is not indicative of a superior team, although you are correct that several injuries plus the interception call did effect the outcome of the game. However if you look at the stats it doesn’t really indicate that LSU was clearly the better team in fact it suggest just the opposite.
Total yards – Alabama 452 LSU 253
Passing yards- Alabama 276 LSU 158
Rushing yards- Alabama 176 LSU 95
Time of possession- Alabama 32:52 LSU 27:08
In what area was LSU clearly the better team?
GLENN SAYS, YES BILL,LSU DOES HAVE THE BETTER TEAM. YOU SAY THE CALLS DOES NOT MATTER BECAUSE OF THE YARDAGE AND TIME OF POSSESSION. BUT PRIOR TO THE FOURTH QUARTER WHEN BAD CALLS NO CALLS, LIKE THE HELMENT TO THE CHEST OF OUR QUARTERBACK,AND THE BAD CALL ON THE INTERCEPTION, ALABAMA STATS AND THE SCORE WAS ALOT DIFFERENT. IT WAS A 73 YD. PLAY WHEN OUR CORNERBACK WAS OUT OF THE GAME WITH CRAMPS, HE HAD STOPPED JULIO JONES ALL DAY. NO WAY WAS ALABAMA THE BETTER TEAM. GEAUX TIGERS!
Sorry the tigers cornerback got cramps and didn’t have a player talented enough to tackle Julio Jones, should the Alabama players apologize for that deficiency and should Julio Jones apologize for making the 73 yard touchdown run?
That 73 yard run was beautiful wasn’t it? You would think that LSU fans would have run out of tissue paper by now,and all the pathetic infantile whining and excuses.
On the interception call half of the LSU players body is out of bounds and his feet is dragging the line. The ball was never in his possession in-bounds and there is no way any official is going to call it an interception when he never had possession of the ball on the field of play.If you look at the video below at 50 seconds notice the ball is just reaching his hands and his upper body is already out of bounds including the ball. Never had possession in bounds, good call by the official.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abuCLF7hJ6s
Yea that would be an incredibly close call to have to make,the lsu player is right on the line by the time the ball reaches him and just one second later he is already going out of bounds. I keep reading people saying it was a blatantly bad call but it seems to me they are just mad because their team lost. That was a matter of one or two seconds being the difference of being in-bounds or out of bounds. it seems to me that his body is not even in- bounds when he gets possession.
I don’t care about Alabama or LSU, but the Tigers got screwed on this call.
It doesn’t matter if his body is out of bounds. He caught the ball with his left foot down (enough for an INT) and then also got his right toe down as well. It’s a tough call to make on the field, but this one should have been corrected after seeing the replay.
Lsu should have never fucking had to stop bama on third and 7. That’s the fucking point.
John, his body doesn’t have to be in bounds. Just his foot you fucking moron.
Disregarding that he never had possession in bounds to begin with,the play was so close it certainly was not indisputable evidence, especially when he is never in possession of the ball. End of story , Alabama wins, losers whine.
I see the LSU fans are still complaining about the interception call,yet I notice they never mention the missed two point attempt,punting on third and short with no time outs left,running into the Alabama punter that resulted in 3 points making it a two score lead,Brandon Taylors missed tackle of Julio Jones resulting in a 73 yard touchdown,substitution infractions,deficient protection of Jordan Jefferson resulting in 3rd quarter sack by Nico Johnson that put Jefferson out of the game,the second failed two point attempt,Jarrett Lee being sacked twice by Marcell Dareus,etc.etc..
Remember at the beginning of the forth quarter when Alabama had it on the LSU two yard line and committed a substitute infraction? LSU was lucky to have come as close as they did. Also I notice LSU fans never mention that Alabama was punting to LSU when the score was within reach when they roughed the Alabama punter, that stupidity put Alabama close enough to go for the first down and make it.
Steve – he had possession of the ball in bounds. I don’t know what replay or screenshots you’re looking at, but you need to take your Alabama goggles off for a while and try to be objective.
What about the motion penalty that negated a big gain and a face mask and the end of it against bama…. I didn’t see anyone move…..The play was killed AFTER LSU’s big gain…????
He did not have the ball when his left foot was down, he had the ball when his right toe touched the WHITE. Good call.
No if you want to see a bad call watch the “Out of Bounds” call against Alabama in the opening drive when the replay machine was powerless. The fact is the Tigers are lucky they didn’t get an extra 7 or 14 against them.
Yea I hear violin sales skyrocketed in Louisiana after their loss to Alabama, put your stock in violins. What’s really never mentioned by these comically disgruntled LSU fans is the fact that it was 4th and a little over six yards to go for a Alabama first down, when LSU roughed the Alabama punter. If LSU wouldn’t have made that idiotic mistake there never would have been that difficult decision for the officials to make involving the interception replay call. You can look causally at any chain of events and find an excuse for losing, however many LSU fans have selective causality when it comes to their teams loss. If they were being truthful they would include missed extra points, bad tackling, poor quarterback protection,horrible clock management and roughing the punter when it was a situation when there was absolutely no need to pressure the punter at all.Causality is a bitch but it goes in many directions other than it all comes down to one call.
It’s never just one call that a game depends on except in extremely rare occasions,but rather many factors, like bad tackling, poor protection of the quarterback, silly mistakes like running into the punter, everything adds up to the final outcome.
LSU naturally wants to propose that their loss all hinged on one very close call,a call that would be difficult for any ref to make. Instead of having a little probity and factoring in all the other events that had occurred on the field, it’s “blame the refs time”. LSU couldn’t stop Alabama’s running game, couldn’t protect its quarterbacks,displayed horrible tackling skills( Alabama did also on many plays),LSU couldn’t manage to do anything in the last quarter except stumble over its own feet and get its quarterback knocked around and players hurt. Both the starting quarterback and substitute quarterback for LSU got sacked and heavily pressured time and time again.
LSU looked like soldiers on the front lines with medics constantly having to take their wounded off the field, what was up with that anyway?
they are not Tigers, they are PUSSY cats.
I don’t understand people who still argue that he didn’t have possession with his left foot down. These pictures are proof.
Just because you say over and over that he didn’t have possession doesn’t make it true. I don’t care who won this game, but LSU got screwed on this particular call.
No Calls in LSUs favor.
This one wasn’t one TV, nor did the announcers say anything about it. What the replay and at the end all you see is Julio 5 yards into LSUs sideline walking back to the field. You had to be there. Bamas last play of the 1st quarter. Julio runs a 10 yd stop on the right sideline. McElory scrambles to his right and Julio breaks deep. The the CB is standing next to Julio looking at the QB and the safety is racing up. The safety sees Julio running deep too late and all he can to is block him out of bounds, 15 yards down field. NO CALL
Before Bamas safety, Chad Jones taps the punt from the 3 down to the 1 yard line. NO CALL ball on the 1.
I viewed the pictures and they are from the same video I viewed somewhat perpetually after the game. None of those pictures really conclusively convinces me that he had possession of the ball at anytime while inbounds. I did change my mind about his feet being inbounds but that would have been a close call in itself. Just my opinion,(and we all know what opinions are like), but it seems to me that the possession of the ball issue would be impossible to rule indisputable evidence to reverse the on the field ruling.You may be right though he might have had possession but it had to be judged on fragment of seconds judgment by the officials.I wish that call would have been reversed now because I believe Alabama would have won the game anyway without all the controversy.
Yea (I was there) I noticed that the LSU player tapped the ball down to the one also, matter of fact I said out-loud to someone watching the game live that “didn’t it look like the LSU player moved that ball to the one yard line?”
The LSU player moved the ball to the one.It was fixed, it was fixed the refs were paid , were paid, I tell you !!!! ( the refs probably missed it honestly speaking)
Also I noticed several questionable plays that really should have been interference calls on LSU and that first quarter play in which the Alabama receiver might have been inbounds but the replay equipment wasn’t working. I just dropped those bad calls and lack of calls and understand that a team has to expect some bad calls, some missing calls and some close calls almost in any game. A team has to rise above any close call and go on and play to their full potential to win the game, LSU couldn’t do it.
First and third picture looks like he is still pulling the ball in, second picture is more convincing. Difficult decision to make, gotta empathize with the ref who had to make this one.
well as you all might no yes it was an interception both feet were down and that was an NFL interception. But the refs gave bama 3 spots during the game on the intentional grounding call they backed lsu up one more yard than they should have and on a 3rd down run by JJ they spotted the ball 2 yards back from were he landed with the ball? now tell me who got the calls again? and watch the replay of the julio TD he was out of bounds on his own comes back in and catches it but bama fans u will get beat very bad by florida so no champ game 4 u accept for seccg
I gurantee it, if that ball wouldve caught by alabama reciever it would have been a catch. Peterson clearly had both his feet in, hell it wouldve been an interception in NFL..freaking SEC refs garbage.
Yea its all a vast SEC conspiracy, certainly couldn’t have been the dismal performance of the LSU team. When all else fails “it’s the Refs fault” is the most convenient path to take. Certainly wasn’t the roughing the punter, or the lack of protection of the LSU quarterbacks, or bad tackling by the LSU players, or the 73 yard touchdown, or the ability of Ingram to move down the field at will, yea it was the refs, a vast conspiracy, yep, yep, that’s the ticket.
Yea it’s those evil SEC officials at work, certainly wasn’t the fact that LSU got a total of 9 yards in the 4th quarter. I’m just wondering how those malevolent SEC officials held LSU to 9 yards in the 4th quarter against that weak Alabama defense. Maybe they spiked the tigers gatorade or put lead weights in their shoes. LSU had possession of the ball three times during the 4th quarter and rolled out an indomitable 9 yards, it must have been the work of those SEC officials. ( breaks into playing violin while tear rolls down LSU fans eyes) now fade to black.
Gerald Hodges the SEC official that made the final decision said there wasn’t indisputable video evidence to reverse the call.
Then he reportedly said quote ” bwaaa haa ha, we control the world now, those lead weights in the LSU players boots, worked just as planned”
Bwaaa haaa haaa !!!!!
“First and third picture looks like he is still pulling the ball in”
Pulling the ball in? You mean tucking it? That constitutes possession. There was no bobble, so he had possession as soon as it hit his hands.
SEC officials – ” We created it , we can control it!!!”
SEC official in below video speaks about world domination plans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cE1fzfOogo
I believe the minute it left Jeffersons hand it constituted possession i.e. if we are going to define possession as making contact with the hands.
Possession also means some degree of control of the football, not just some ambiguous contact with the football. If the LSU player never had any real control of the football inbounds he never had possession of it. Appears to me that he never had any control of the football until he was out of bounds.
I’m hopping mad!!! Even though we roughed the kicker that later set up the interception call, I blame the bad replay call itself for our loss. There was no causality between the roughing the kicker and Alabama still having possession of the ball, none at all,it was all the questionable interception call.
1. Shoddy clock management by Les Miles = Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
2. Mark Ingrams rush for 18 yards to the LSU 23 = Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
3. Darius Hanks 21 yard catch for a touchdown =Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
4. Jordan Jefferson being sacked by Nico Johnson for a 15 yard loss and intentionally grounding the ball= Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
5. Mark Ingrams rush for 23 yards to the LSU 30 = Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
6. Julio Jones run for 73 yard touchdown = Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
7. Jarrett Lee sacked by Marcell Dareus for a loss of 8 yards = Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
8. LSU penalty for roughing the Alabama kicker = Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
9. Jarrett Lee sacked again by Marcell Dareus for a loss of 4 yards= Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
10. Jarrett Lee pass intercepted by Robby Green=Bad Patrick Peterson interception call
Possession of the football is certainly not considered possession while the player is pulling the ball in toward his body to gain control of the football during a catch or interception. If a player is in the process of getting control of the football during a catch or an interception and runs out of bounds before having control of the football,then whether he had his feet touching the field of play is irrelevant, it is ruled an incomplete pass.
LSU was robbed the SEC officials put something in the tigers gatorade, I tells ya!!!!!
This is all fine and dandy except that the interception doesn’t count if Julio touches the ball while out of bounds at the same time. Which he does and so the play is dead. End of story. I maybe a homer, but watch the replay and see that what I say is true. Julio is out of bounds. Have a good day and lets move on.
Know the rules Julio Touch the ball and the DB and the ball is out of bounds. Does anyone who writes or calls games not have the intelligence to know the rules. If both players touch the ball and one is out of bounds then they both are out of bounds. Got it.
BEN—- Your team was better? At which aspect of the game? Oh waith I know, you were able to pin us inside the 5 yrd line with your punting team. But every EVERY every other aspect of the game was clearly won by the TIDE and the most important one THE SCORE 24-15 get over it already…..
AL 200 + yds on the ground LSU 95
AL 200 + yds throught the air LSU 114
Defensive AL 3 sacks 8 tackles for losses and 9 hurries on the QB and LSU is the better team?
LSU was not conditioned well and they were clearly not ready for a game of this magnitude…
Arrow — The ball was in Peterson’s possession, so it does not matter if Julio touched it. His hands were outside of Peterson’s, and Peterson did not juggle the ball.