Exclusive: NFL Ref Reacts To Controversial Roughing The Passer Call On BYU’s Isaiah Glasker

BYU's Isaiah Glasker made a phenomenal play in the third quarter of Saturday's game against Arizona, however, a roughing the passer penalty not only gave the Wildcats a first down, it nearly kicked him out of the game as the refs included a targeting penalty as well.

The play was a huge turn of events for several reasons. With BYU trailing 17-14 in the middle of the third quarter, the Cougars were looking to get the ball back, and instead, the penalty gave the Wildcats a fresh set of downs and moved them into scoring territory.

Thankfully for Glasker and for BYU fans and coaches, the refs overturned the targeting call, however, to the disappointment of many, they kept the roughing the passer call which sent BYU head coach Kalani Sitake into a frenzy. Sitake, who is known as one of the nicest coaches in all of college football, was furious with the call.

While we couldn't hear what was discussed between him and the refs, many people — including myself — commented on social media questioning how a roughing the passer call could happen when the quarterback still had the ball in his hands when he got hit.

Even the announcers were talking about if the ball should be ruled incomplete, or if the ball should be considered a fumble. Neither of them thought it was a penalty.

After watching several replays and a number of different camera angles, Glasker never made helmet-to-helmet contact with Fifita as he was coming from the side. Instead, Glasker's chest hits Fifita in the shoulder pads and has hand/forearm going across Fifita's face, but it doesn't appear to touch the facemask either.

In my decades of watching football, I've never seen a roughing the passer get called like that. So I was curious and reached out to former NFL referee Terry McAulay to get his take on it.

To give you some context, McAulay was an NFL referee for two decades. With nearly 20 years of NFL and college experience, McAulay has been a part of many rule changes over the years and has been one of the top referee's in both the NFL and college. He's officiated in the highest games — including three Super Bowls — and is currently the rules analyst for the Big Ten, Notre Dame as well as Sunday Night Football. To make a long story short, he knows the rules and is one of the best at it.

I sent him the video and asked to get his take on it and here's our conversation:

Me: I would love to get your thoughts on this @tjmcaulay. Refs throw the flag thinking targeting. Replay shows no targeting, but roughing the passer is kept, yet the QB still had the ball is his hands. Contact to neck/head? The LB is 6'5, and QB is 5'6.

Terry: "A player in a passing posture gets full roughing the passer protection. Forcible contact to the head/neck area is roughing the passer whether it meets the criteria for targeting or not. This was correctly called."

Me: "Different camera angles showed the LB hitting essentially the shoulder — is that part of the head/neck? Also, are you saying if LB hits the QB lower, this wouldn't have been roughing the passer? Announcers were thinking it could've been fumble."

Terry: "I see clear, forcible helmet to helmet contact. Yes, if he hit him below the head/neck and above the knee area, it wouldn't have been a foul."

To summarize, college quarterbacks are treated like NFL quarterbacks and they will be protected at all costs, so it's likely we'll see more of this going forward.

Second, because Glasker makes contact to the area (head/neck) no matter if his hands/forearm touched the quarterbacks helmet or not, and even though it wasn't a helmet-to-helmet hit, because of the size difference — being nearly a foot taller — Glasker inadvertently tackles "high" which promptly gets flagged.

So yes, it was technically roughing the passer because of a high tackle. However, these situations happen in nearly every game and it doesn't get called, so either the refs are looking at this more and are starting to call it, or BYU was unlucky by this official.

Unfortunately for BYU, the refs couldn't reverse the roughing the passer call even if they wanted to do so, but they did take away targeting after reviewing the play. By the book, yes, it was technically roughing the passer, however, going by the same letter of the law — and as my wife would say — they should be calling holding and pass interference on every play in football.

But in the end, Glasker got the last laugh as not only intercepted the ball to end the drive, but the Cougars pulled out the win in double overtime.

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