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ESPN announcers blast ACC refs for botched call in Clemson-Pitt game

Spenser Davis

By Spenser Davis

Published:

ESPN’s Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy called a very interesting game between Clemson and Pitt on Saturday afternoon.

The game featured more than 150 yards in penalties, multiple fourth-quarter lead changes and, of course, more than its fair share of controversial calls.

Perhaps the most controversial moment came late in the 4th quarter when Pitt quarterback Nate Yarnell took a shot to the face from a Clemson defender and went down. It appeared to be a clear penalty, but a flag was not thrown initially.

Here’s a look at the initial play:

McDonough was highly-critical of the refs for missing what appeared to be an obvious foul on the Tigers.

“I don’t know how they missed that,” he said. “I mean, it’s clear as a bell to everybody in the stadium.”

There was a short delay following the play due to an injured Pitt player. After a discussion, officials did ultimately throw the flag for unnecessary roughness.

While officials seemed to get the call right, that decision also earned some criticism from the broadcast booth. McDonough suggested that officials only threw the flag because they saw a replay on the video board at Acrisure Stadium.

“Yeah, ‘after discussion,'” McDonough said. “‘After looking up and seeing it on the replay board, we realized we missed it and we dropped the flag.’ We now have officiating off scoreboards in stadiums.”

Here’s video from that sequence:

In the end, Pitt went on to kick a go-ahead field goal with under 2 minutes remaining in the game on that drive. However, Clemson won the game 24-20 thanks to a 50-yard touchdown run from Cade Klubnik.

Spenser Davis

Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.

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