Sankey Blames Announcers, Not Officials, After Texas-Missouri Calls Draw Criticism

On Saturday, Texas beat Missouri in a game that ended up being discussed as much for its officiating as for its score. The broadcast crew, Joe Tessitore and Jesse Palmer, spent part of the afternoon pointing out calls they thought were wrong, and most of them seemed to favor the Longhorns.

Palmer was the most direct. At one point he said that, with no stake in the outcome, a Missouri fan or coach Eli Drinkwitz would be livid, because many of the calls seemed to be going against the Tigers. He came back to it in the fourth quarter. A Texas defender forcibly knocked a Missouri wide receiver down away from the play, and no flag came. That should have been unnecessary roughness, with a free first down and 15 yards. Palmer said he couldn't believe he was saying it, but the crew had missed another call that hurt Missouri.

The most disputed moment came in the third quarter, on a third-down play involving Texas quarterback Arch Manning. His arm appeared to be moving forward as the ball left his hand, which would have made it an incomplete pass and forced a hard decision from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian. Instead it was ruled a fumble, and Texas recovered, picking up 14 yards and a first down. The Longhorns scored right afterward, a drive that helped start their win. The call drew heavy criticism across college football.

Drinkwitz said that if he said what he wanted to say, he would be fined until he had no retirement left. He added that he would not blame the officials, because that would be disrespectful to Sarkisian and his team. Missouri athletic director Laird Veatch went further in public, publishing an open letter asking the SEC for more transparency.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey responded on "The Paul Finebaum Show," but he aimed at the broadcasters rather than the officials. He said he was highly disappointed in announcers and their criticism, and that they were wrong. He said some of the worst officials in America sit in the announcers' booth. He said he had turned on a game Saturday and found an officiating expert who was flat wrong. That, he said, creates a narrative that the league has done something wrong, which he called unacceptable and something that has to be addressed.

Terry McAuley, an officiating expert and NBC rules analyst, answered in a post on X. He wrote that announcers in college football and the NFL know the rules better than ever in his lifetime, and are more supportive of officiating than ever. He said the three crews he works with regularly are strong on the rules, which keeps his own interventions to a minimum. Announcers sometimes get complex rules wrong, he conceded, but officials and replay also get them wrong, and announcers are obliged to say so, especially when a rule is involved rather than a real-time judgment. He called today's announcers very deferential on judgment calls. If Sankey and the SEC think announcers are treating the league unfairly, he suggested, working with broadcast partners on rules and officiating would be far more effective than a broadside.

The Fox News piece, an analysis, takes McAuley's side. It argues that announcers seldom attack officiating unless they think it is egregious. It does not claim a conspiracy to protect Texas, noting that missed calls tend to even out and that a crew can simply make a run of mistakes. It also notes that some Longhorns fans were angry about calls they felt should have gone against Missouri. Its criticism is that blaming the announcers rather than the officials is gaslighting, something it says Sankey does when campaigning to get all 16 SEC teams into the 12-team playoff.

What to watch: whether the SEC answers Veatch's request for transparency, and whether Sankey's approach to broadcasters changes after McAuley's offer to work together.