Referees, Not Players, Determined Winner of Tuesday's EagleBank Bowl

As a college football fan, I've been following the 2009-2010 bowls fairly closely this season, as I'm not in the mood to waste my $20 entry fee for my bowl pool.

I'll have to say, I only followed Tuesday's EagleBank bowl between the Temple Owls and UCLA Bruins casually, as I was more interested in the top-25 matchup in the Champs Sports Bowl later that night.

If you just looked at the final score, which went in favor of the Bruins 30-21, it appeared to be a rather uninteresting game. But the truth was Temple dominated over half the game. And what ended their control of the bowl?

Not the players, but the referees.

Temple's offense was on a roll going into halftime, up 21-10, and came out in the second half looking just as lively, despite giving up a touchdown to cut the lead to four on UCLA's first second-half possession.

The Owls drove methodically down the field on a 60-plus yard drive, but the Bruins defense stiffened a bit as the Owls reached the red zone, drawing a 3rd-and-3 at the ten yard line.

Temple rushed on an off-tackle play to the right, and although the running back was tripped up by two side-by-side UCLA defenders one yard behind the line of scrimmage, he made an unbelievable scrambling effort and was able to stumble all the way to the first down marker at the seven yard line before finally falling down.

However, when the ref came to spot the ball, it was over a foot short. The Owls looked around a little confused, then lined up for their fourth down try.

Thankfully, a review was called down from upstairs, and Owl fans could breath a sigh of relief that the error was spotted.

On ESPN's television broadcast, the replay was shown multiple times, and they were able to slow it down to show that the runner's elbow landed directly on their "unofficial" yellow line.

Yet, after three or four minutes of review, including a commercial break on the television broadcast, the call was upheld.

It was a terrible call, and not only the announcers but I'm sure most other viewers around the country agreed it was a very perplexing decision. They did not know at the time that it would make be the deciding difference in the game.

Temple was then completely stuffed on fourth down and turned the ball over to UCLA.

After that, it was all Bruins; the shaken Temple offense threw a pick while driving on the next drive. After that, they lost a net 24 yards on their final four possessions, allowed an interception return for a touchdown, and finally a safety while punting late in the fourth quarter, which put the game out of reach.

So, although the difference was nine points, more than an extra Temple touchdown could have covered, it was the momentum of the call that might have ended up costing the Owls a victory in their first bowl game in 30 years in front of a national television audience.

Simply stated, it was the refs, not the players, that named a winner and a loser of Tuesday afternoon's EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C.