Former Georgia coach Mark Richt was baffled after wild decision by Texas officials

Former Georgia football head coach Mark Richt is not happy. To be fair, pretty much every Georgia fan and current staff member were upset with the officials questionable decision in the second half, but Richt as the Georgia legend that his is was very upset.

We all know the sequence of events by now. Carson Beck threw an interception during the second half that was initially overturned due to a pass interference penalty on Texas. The Longhorns’ fans became very upset and caused a delay in the game by throwing trash on the field. During that delay, the officials got together and picked up the pass interference flag which allowed the interception to stand.

That is something I have never seen before, and it sounds like Richt hasn’t either.

Officials make bad calls all the time, it’s just part of the game at this point. But this was borderline egregious, and Richt could not hold back from commenting on the situation.

”If you’re going to make the call, make the call, if you blow it, you blow it, everybody does that from time to time,” Richt said via dawgnation.com. “But the timing of when they changed their mind, so to speak, was very suspect considering how the fans reacted and considering how much time that it took.”

“You understand that after a quick communication they might pick up a flag and say no flag, but to wait that long and to change a call that was so crucial as that, I’d have been a little pissed off, too.”

Richt explained his frustrations perfectly. Most games there is a moment where a flag is thrown but the refs get together and decide to pick it up without penalizing either team. Nobody has any real issue with that when this happens within 30 seconds of the flag being thrown. But the problem in this scenario, as Richt mentions, is the timing of it.

Georgia was about to snap the ball for their next play. They in fact would have gotten the snap off without intervention from the officials had the Texas fans not caused the delay that they did. With all that extra time as everyone waited to clear the field, the officials then decided to overturn their call. We’re talking multiple minutes at this point between the flag being thrown, penalty yards being marked off, both teams getting set for the next play, and Texas fans throwing trash on the field. That has to be at least 5-10 minutes right there.

As an official, you can’t pick up a flag after that much time, especially knowing how impactful the call was.

Texas scored to cut the lead to 23-15 two plays later, but thankfully it ended up not mattering as Georgia held on to win 30-15. This hopefully will be a learning point for all officials, because what transpired during this abnormal 10 minute stretch was not fair and shouldn’t be allowed.