Texas High School Refs Make Worst Touchdown Call You’ll Ever See
It's not just NFL referees who have no idea what a catch is
If you are a football fan, you’ve probably seen some horrible calls regarding if a receiver actually caught a ball.
But I bet you’ve never seen a call as bad as this.
On Friday night, the PSJA North Raiders and Boerne-Champion Chargers squared off in a Region IV-5A DI area round playoff matchup. The Raiders came in at 11-0, while the Chargers had an 8-3 record.
What should have been an awesome Texas high school football game between two top-tier teams was riddled with controversy on the very first play of the game.
The Chargers went into play action right off the bat and threw it deep, and a Raiders defender knocked the ball away before it could be hauled in for a big gain.
Or did he?
The referees ruled that this play was a catch, fumble, and recovery, which was taken to the house for a touchdown.
Again, that’s what the refs said happened. But after seeing this video, I’m not so sure.
Here’s another angle.
It seems pretty dang obvious that that’s an incompletion. How can we say the receiver had any control? Even if he did, where's the football move after the catch?
But the referee, who was standing about seven feet from the play, deemed that a reception.
What makes this call all the worse is that the Chargers ended up winning 24-21. Sure, you could say that the Raiders had all game to overcome that wildly unfortunate series of events. But on the other hand, the ref got that call wrong, and it ended up being a game-changing decision on his part.
We say all the time that NFL referees don’t know what a catch is. Evidently, that deeply philosophical question is plaguing high school refs as well.