Nothing like Texas home cooking!

Oh boy. First game of the season and someone has already fucked up an onside kick ruling in a game with a Big XII team.

Here's the pertinent quote from that article:

On Tuesday, head coach Steve Roberts got a little bit of closure from Saturday’s loss.
“I have been in communication with the supervisor of officials (of the Big 12 Conference),” Roberts said. “We got a confirmation today (Tuesday) that they missed the call.” The call Roberts referred to was the ruling that negated the Indians’ recovered onside kick with 56 seconds left in the game. Officials ruled the Indians did not have enough players on both sides of the ball before the kick. Roberts thought the film showed the call was incorrect, and the confirmation proved that.
“There’s nothing you can do about it now,” Roberts said. “I don’t have a reaction because a reaction’s worthless."

Two things:

1) Why do these referees not understand the onside kick rules? From what I understand, the penalty they called wasn't even an actual rules infraction! It wasn't something that they "missed" (which is largely forgivable, even last year in Autzen when OU got hosed), it was something completely extraneous that they flagged as an infraction. WTF? To top that, apparently Arkansas State lined up in the SAME FORMATION to re-do the onside kick and there was no problem that time! So, it would seem, that at least one of the officials realized it wasn't a true penalty. If that was the case, why not wave the flag off? Oh that's right I forgot, referees have egos that are far too big for their britches. They'd rather let the organization deal with a formal complaint than look like a doofus for 30 seconds on the field.

2) Congrats to Roberts on not blowing this whole thing out of proportion. Bob Stoops could learn something from this.

The thing that really burns me about this is that I've almost no doubt in my mind that Texas got this call because they are Texas, and because they're playing at home. It's ridiculous. Home fucking cooking at its finest, folks. If anything, I'd like to think a questionable call would favor the little guy. Obviously that's not the way it works out.

I can only hope that Texas proceeds to get royally screwed on as many calls as possible the rest of the season. I'd love to see it, and I'm sure Steve Roberts would love to see it. I can just see it: blown call sends Texas to Cotton Bowl instead of BCS game. It probably won't work out this way, but if Appalachian State is any indicator, some teams may get what's coming this season.