Alabama football fans have more complaints about the refs in the Tennessee game after the chain gang tried to give the Vols an extra down.
The matchup between No. 3 Alabama and No. 6 Tennessee was an intense SEC battle between two fierce foes…and an arguably incompetent reffing crew.
Alabama fans were already shaking their fists at the officials for perceived bias in the first quarter. The Crimson Tide were hit with seven penalties while the Volunteers had just one.
Later, they let Tennessee get away with what looked like a targeting call on a helmet-to-helmet hit of Bryce Young. Worse still, it was a late hit that could have easily been called even without targeting.
The refs gave Alabama fans even more reason to question their allegiances when the operator of the downs sign tried to get Tennessee out of a fourth-down stop.
Chain gang feeds Alabama conspiracy theories vs. Tennessee
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) October 15, 2022
Tennessee went for it on fourth-and-short near midfield and couldn’t move the chains. While the broadcast showed it as a fourth-down attempt, the marker on the field indicated third down.
If the officials had gone with the sign, Tennessee would have had an extra down. Fortunately for Alabama, the refs didn’t make that blunder. It just took a lengthy review for them to double-check that the Volunteers had gotten four downs.
The review itself slowed down the game and could have negatively impacted either side. Even if the refs got the call right, it was a bad look for something so simple to get messed up like that in the biggest game of the year so far.
Alabama went on to score on their next possession to tie the game with a two-point conversion. So even if the refs were trying to keep them down, they didn’t do a good enough job of it.
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