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Texas A&M 9 Nebraska 6: Prosecutors Need to Look Into This Game for Violations of Law

By Andis Kaulins

The stadium at Texas A&M featured a logo "The 12th Man", apparently intended to mean the Aggie fans, but in fact it was the officials who were the 12th man in this game, as the subsequent video clearly proves.

The officiating in Nebraska's referee-enabled 9-6 loss to Texas A&M was awful and cost the Huskers the game. A full investigation should be conducted. This is college football at its worst. Prosecutors need to start looking into the daily practices of this so-called "amateur" sport, on and off the field.

The following play on video in which a piled-on Texas A&M player who should have been penalized for piling on is pinching the private parts of a Husker who recovered a fumble at the BOTTOM of the heap. The refs allegedly did not see it and penalized the player who was hurting at the bottom of the heap rather than the now detected perpetrator, who, according to our understanding of the criminal laws, has committed a criminal offense.

Clueless officiating enables players and abetting coaches to pull off these kinds of stunts. A similar thing happened in the Auburn-Georgia game last week after what the Dogs thought was a cheap shot on their quarterback by Tiger star Nick Fairley, which in that case was clearly not intentional, though we do not speak of other cases. What followed was intentional team action and an attempted and forbidden chop block by Georgia to get revenge, leading to fists being thrown and, quite unjustly, two Auburn players being thrown out and suspended for protecting Fairley, rather than ejection of the Georgia perpetrators, who were in the wrong. On the other hand, one can understand teams protecting their quarterbacks. The problem is not only the players but even moreso the insufficient college rules and the biased officiating. Make the RULES CLEAR and apply them uniformly to all teams, without bias. If Fairley is making cheap shots on the field it is up to the officials to put a stop to it by ejection. The SEC reviewed the videos and no disciplinary action was taken. We do however agree that stricter standards have to be applied to keep college quarterbacks from taking the beating that they are taking everywhere in college football this season. It can't be that defensive (or offensive) players get away with senseless brutality that is fined heavily in the pros (i.e. the NFL), where teams have a commercial interest in the health of their best players. Why is it that in college football the college presidents and NCAA administrators are out to lunch? We do not even speak of the overwhelmed referees.

If it was right for the ailing Big 12 Conference to suspend Husker Eric Martin after the fact for an alleged illegal helmet hit during the Oklahoma State game simply based on video perusal after the game, then in this similar video case the guilty Texas A&M player should be banned from college football and this clueless officiating team should have to turn in their whistles. Seldom was a game so poorly refereed in favor of one team. Thank goodness the Huskers are moving to the Big 10. The Cadets of Texas A&M should hang their heads in shame in dishonor over this game.

Nebraska Player Ben Cotton Getting Pinched (?) By Texas A&M's Tony Jerod-Eddie



The incident was only one of a series of biased calls by the team officiating the 9-6 Texas A&M referee-abetted steal of the game from Nebraska on November 20, 2011, which assessed no fewer than 16 penalties on the Huskers amounting to 145 yards, while assessing only 2 penalties for 10 yards against the Aggies and even reverting without review a flag thrown late in the game on an Aggie defender for clear pass interference. The reversal of that call was suspicious and led us to do a little investigating. Too many things out of the ordinary had already occurred in the referee's handling of this game. As written at USA Today, "penalties devastated the Cornhuskers' opportunities, as they were called for 16 infractions totaling 145 yards. Conversely, the Aggies were penalized just twice for 10 yards." Let us see if the game looks "out of the ordinary" when we view the stats:

Nebraska College Football Schedule 2010	Number of Penalties Assessed against the Huskers	Penalties Against Nebraska in Yards	Number of Penalties Assessed against the Big Red Opponent	Penalties Against Opponent in Yards in their game against Nebraska	Average No. of Penalties per Game this year for that Opponent (as of Nov. 13)	Average Penalty Yards per Game this Season for that Opponent
W. Kentucky at Nebraska	6	75	7	51	6.5	48.7
Idaho at Nebraska	10	123	3	15	7.4	72.3
Nebraska at Washington	7	49	2	15	6.3	56.1
S. Dakota St. at Nebraska	6	47	7	73	---	---
Nebraska at Kansas State	6	48	4	30	5.0	39.4
Texas at Nebraska	10	94	4	53	6.5	68.9
Nebraska at Oklahoma State	7	55	8	84	6.7	63.6
Missouri at Nebraska	6	53	7	40	6.2	55.7
Nebraska at Iowa State	6	54	3	40	6.0	52.7
Kansas at Nebraska	6	54	1	9	6.1	57.5
Nebraska at Texas A&M	16	145	2	10	8.7	68.8
Totals prior to the last game	70	652	46	410
Average per game prior to last game	7.0	65.2	4.6	41
Totals after the last game	86	797	48	420
Average per game after the last game	7.8	72.5	4.4	38
The NCAA FBS Median per game after November 13 games was:	6	53	6	53

How is it possible that Texas A&M, which only had 2 penalties for 10 yards called against it in the Nebraska game, otherwise this season going into this game had the most penalties per game of any Husker opponent this year, namely 8.7. It is not the case in the hard-hitting battle against the Huskers that the Aggies suddenly became more docile against the Cornhuskers, quite the contrary, as the video evidence shows, it was worse, but the refs did not call it. That is the "12th Man" that should be removed from college football and it can be spotted any time that penalty stats diverge too far from the norm, as they did in this game.

Obviously, there was something terribly wrong in this game with the officiating and such games should be reviewed by the Conference and -- in the case of the Big 12 not happy with Nebraska departing for the Big 10 -- by out of conference representatives, just in case there is any funny business going on.

Offending referees should be stiffly reprimanded or sent out to pasture. Offending players should be suspended.
And in this case, the game should be nullified and replayed again on a neutral field with non-conference officials.

Full post as published by LawPundit on November 21, 2010 (boomark / email).