Texas A&M football: 4 takeaways from close loss to Clemson
By Jeff Shull
The refs made two critical errors against the Aggies
It’s never fun blaming the refs for deciding the outcome, mostly because if the calls go the other way then you don’t actually know what follows would have gone the same way. But the refs really screwed the Aggies on multiple occasions.
The first was after Starkel was forced to come in and fumbled on his only play. A couple plays later, Clemson went deep to Tee Higgins for a big play down the left sideline, but he blatantly pushed the Aggies’ defensive back in the back and knocked him to the ground. Nothing was called. The play led to a Clemson touchdown.
The second and more critical of the two was when Quartney Davis made slick moves after a catch to get around Clemson defenders and appeared to fumble the ball out of bounds at the one yard line. For some reason, the ACC refs huddled and changed the call on the field to a touchback and awarded Clemson the ball (this is the dumbest rule in football).
If one or both of these calls is made correctly, the outcome of the game could have changed in the Aggies’ favor.