One official each with the Big Ten Conference and NCAA stood by the review decision to call back Iowa punt returner Cooper DeJean’s 54-yard touchdown at the end of the Gophers’ 12-10 win over Iowa on Saturday.
Big Ten coordinator of football officials Bill Carollo and NCAA rules editor Steve Shaw addressed the call of an invalid fair catch signal with the Pioneer Press and Des Moines Register for roughly 25 minutes on Monday morning.
“In this situation, we allowed (DeJean’s) right hand to point to the ball, but if the other hand, if there’s any waving signal, it constitutes an invalid signal,” Carollo said in the video interview.
Shaw said replay review “came in and properly overturned the call” at put it at the spot where DeJean possessed it, Iowa’ 46-yard line, wiping away a go-ahead touchdown with two minutes left in the game.
DeJean and Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz thought otherwise on DeJean’s arm movements.
Carollo did acknowledge one caveat to how the call was administered in Iowa City. “In retrospect, we would have preferred if they were confident that signal was an invalid signal, we should have killed the play” before a return was made, Carollo said.
That would have defused a lot of the negative reaction from the Hawkeyes and their fans fans because the play continued and DeJean appeared to give Iowa a 16-10 lead with 90 seconds left.
Ferentz took issue with, in his mind, the review going from whether DeJean stepped out of bounds to a decision on the invalid fair catch signal.
“They didn’t deem it, they didn’t see it, they didn’t rule on it during the actual play, but it is a reviewable play,” Carollo clarified. “Once you go to replay, you have a chance to look at all aspects of the play.”
Hawkeyes fans were disgruntled by the fact that Big Ten official Tim O’Dey, who was the referee on Saturday, was the line judge for Floyd of Rosedale game in Minnesota in 2022, when Hawkeyes linebacker Jack Campbell had an interception return called back for stepping out of bounds late in Iowa’s 13-10 win.
Carollo said the call to review the play was not made by O’Dey, but in the booth at Kinnick Stadium. Carollo said there was “no consideration” to not put O’Dey’s crew on this year’s Floyd of Rosedale game.
“We all make mistakes, different position, different game,” Carollo said. “I usually don’t comment on past games. But I did acknowledge at the time we made a mistake, you know, made a mistake that we should have killed the play. But Tim O’Dey is 60 yards away from this play. He has nothing to do with it except for listens. He does watch, but replay is making the final decision at the booth in Iowa.”
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