No. 16 Iowa lost to Purdue on Saturday, 38-36. The decisive play in the scorebook was a 25-yard field goal for Purdue with eight seconds left, but the game was more likely decided on a second-18 earlier in the Boilermakers’ final drive, with about a minute to play.
Did Iowa lose to Purdue because of a bad pass interference call?
It’s close, but Hawkeyes fans aren’t wrong to be angry.
On a second-and-18 at the Iowa 31, David Blough threw to the back of the end zone, where Purdue’s Isaac Zico was all alone with Iowa defensive back Julius Brents. The two got tangled up, the pass fell incomplete, and Brents got flagged for pass interference.
Instead of facing third-and-18 at a spot on the field that would’ve required a 49-yard field goal, the Boilers got first-and-10 at the Iowa 16. Purdue kicker Spencer Evans hadn’t connected from longer than 38 all year and was 0-for-2 on anything longer than 40 yards, but the field position boost (even before the new set of downs) put Purdue comfortably inside Evans’ range. A few plays later, he knocked through a chip shot without incident.
Several things look, to me, to be true about the controversial PI play:
- Brents definitely grabbed Zico by the jersey around his left shoulder.
- Zico also looped his left arm under Brents’ right arm, briefly wrapping his arm around the defender’s and making it harder for Brents to make his own play on the ball.
- Brents had good body position and had his head toward the ball.
The key part of the NCAA’s pass interference rule that makes this call look iffy: the one about simultaneous attempts to catch it.
It’s not pass interference:
When two or more eligible players are making a simultaneous and bona fide attempt to reach, catch or bat the pass. Eligible players of either team have equal rights to the ball.
There was grabbing going on here, but both players were doing it. Both of them looked like they were otherwise making legal, good-faith efforts to catch the ball or bat it away.
Pass interference is a judgment call, and it’s often hard to be definitive that a call like this one was right or wrong. Reffing’s also hard.
But if I were the official in the end zone, I wouldn’t have flagged this one.
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