Big Ten admits refs botched Nebraska PAT vs. Maryland

The league put it in writing on Monday, 2 days after Nebraska's 48-23 win, and the beat writers had it right away.

Chris Vannini

@ChrisVannini

The Big Ten says refs messed up a penalty on an extra point that should've resulted in a re-kick.

Big Ten Conference@bigten

A statement from the Big Ten on the Maryland-Nebraska Football game. t.co/8mcAIej716

Here's the play. Nebraska led 48-23 with 6:35 left in the 4th quarter when Maryland got flagged for roughing the snapper on the PAT. The kick missed anyway. By rule, the penalty should have been enforced right then: ball moved half the distance to the goal, Nebraska kicks again. Instead the crew let the miss stand and tacked the yardage onto the ensuing kickoff.

That's a real rules miss, but let's not pretend it flips anything. It's 1 point in a 25-point game with under 7 minutes to play. Nebraska won, Maryland lost, and nobody's scoreboard changes. What the statement does is put the crew on blast for a game that was a mess from start to finish.

Adam Rittenberg

@ESPNRittenberg

Big Ten acknowledges officiating error in the Nebraska-Maryland game

The statement itself is the usual conference-speak: the Big Ten says it has been in contact with the officiating crew about the error and will keep emphasizing consistent application of the rules. No word on any discipline for the crew.

The bigger story is everything around that PAT. The game had 28 total penalties, the most in any FBS game since 2021. Matt Rhule called it "ridiculous" and said it was handled poorly by the officials, adding, "There's things I've never had called before." When a head coach who just won by 25 is that heated, you know the flags were flying.

Rhule took some of this on himself too. He said Monday he accepted the yardage on the kickoff because of a miscommunication with an official, since he didn't realize the kick had missed, and called that a "poor" decision on his part. So the crew blew the enforcement and the Nebraska sideline didn't catch it either.

For Nebraska it's a footnote on a comfortable conference win. For the Big Ten officiating crew it's a public admission that it didn't know how to enforce a pretty basic penalty, in a game where it threw 28 flags. Expect that crew's next assignment to get some extra attention.