Coaches want better communication from officials

Calls from other coaches began rolling in Sunday, Duke coach David Cutcliffe said.

“A multitude reached out to me,” he said.

It was a day after the Blue Devils’ 30-27 loss to Miami and the coaching conversations, Cutcliffe said, centered on how to prevent the controversy at game’s end as well as an avenue under NCAA rules that reverses the outcome when serious officiating errors – on the field and in the replay booth – are made on game-deciding plays.

The Hurricanes won with a touchdown on a last-gasp, eight-lateral kickoff return that the ACC later ruled was rife with officiating errors and should have been overturned on review. Despite the conference announcement, despite the suspension of the refereeing crew, replay official and replay communicator, the Duke loss stood.

Cutcliffe was steamed after the game about the lack of communication he received on the sideline. He could see a yellow flag on the field and knew that a block-in-the-back penalty against Miami had been called. He believed a Miami player touched his knee down before making one of the eight laterals.

For nine minutes, Cutcliffe and everyone else in Wallace Wade Stadium waited.

“I’m standing with an official who is not part of the review huddle – they have people that are assigned to stand with you,” Cutcliffe said Saturday.

Referee Jerry Magallanes made a final announcement over the P.A. system: After review, the touchdown stood. No knee down on the play, no penalty, Magallanes announced.

With that, the officials were gone.

“People just run off the field and the game is suddenly over,” Cutcliffe said Saturday. “I got no explanation on the sideline. … I didn’t know what to do.”

UNC coach Larry Fedora said Monday that in those situations, as a coach, “You hope you’re going to get some communication from the officials.”

“But that’s about it,” Fedora added. “You don’t get to – I mean, you can challenge things. You get one challenge. But I don’t know – I think the main thing you want is communication, that’s the biggest thing. So you can be aware of what they’re thinking.

“You want them to get it right, that’s what you want. You want it to be fair to both teams, and you just want to get them right.”

Despite the ACC ruling and suspension Sunday, the NCAA does not allow a game result to be reversed. Cutcliffe said he called some NCAA officials on Sunday to inquire but that there is no NCAA process that allows for reversals.

“I do believe there should be,” he said. “The NCAA is where it starts, to put that process in place to reverse a game.”

Cutcliffe noted he has served on an NCAA football issues committee and said he would like to see more discussions about the proper use of replays, about how to handle plays that determine the outcome of games.

“I would think this will create that conversation and hopefully this doesn’t happen to another set of young men,” he said Sunday.

This story was originally published November 2, 2015 at 5:59 PM with the headline "Coaches want better communication from officials."