October 31, 2026Updated November 1, 2026, 12:08 a.m. ET
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a statement from the Big 12,
BYU football continues to be part of some questionable decisions from officials this season.
Early in the first quarter against Arizona State on Saturday, Oct. 31, the No. 9 Cougars got a touchdown — Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira said it shouldn’t have counted — after two separate reviews.
Officials originally reviewed a play and determined that Bear Bachmeier fumbled at the Arizona State one-yard line before running back Sione Moa recovered it. Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham called a timeout, prompting officials to take another look at Bachmeier’s fumble. Upon further examination, they determined that he had crashed the plane for a landing.
Bachmeier was initially ruled out, with officials then advancing the ball for a touchdown.
Pereira did not agree with the way the game was settled. He said a touchdown should not have been awarded upon review, noting the ball could not move forward after the play was ruled dead.
“It’s not the kind of situation you get when a rider goes out of bounds where you can continue the action,” Pereira said on the show. “It was a player who got the ball and got up on the field. The ruling on the field was that the runner was initially down.
“And if so, you’ve declared it dead. You can grant a clawback, but you can’t grant an advance, unless you’ve come up with a new rule here, which I’m not sure you can really do.”
BYU, on the Arizona State one-yard line, could have scored on the next play on third down. Still, it seems like the Sun Devils should have had another chance to stop a Cougars touchdown. Dillingham was visibly angry with the officials after the officials changed the call, appearing to argue that the ball could not advance and that the play should not have counted because the officials called the play dead.
Pereira agreed.
“The fact is Kenny is right,” Pereira said. “They killed the play. You can forget the moment the whistle blew. They killed the play on the field and the ball was out. You can recover but not advance.”
After the game, the Big 12 Conference acknowledged that the officiating crew made an error on the field.
“At 11:27 of the first half of the Arizona State-BYU game, Big 12 Replay officials stopped play to review possession by BYU. The play showed that the runner lost possession of the ball before the point of forward progression, and the ball was recovered by another BYU player at the 2-yard line and awarded a touchdown. Rule 12-3-3-d-2 states: “If the replay official declares that the ball was not dead, it belongs to the recovery team at the location of recovery and any advance is canceled.
This is the third week in a row with a questionable officiating call in a game featuring BYU, which doesn’t seem to escape controversy. BYU’s double-overtime loss to UCF in Week 8 was riddled with officiating calls, a week after the Cougars escaped with a potentially game-changing pass interference call on the final play of the game in their upset win over Notre Dame.
“It’s been three straight weeks of Big 12 officials making rules as they go along,” Fox analyst Robert Griffin III said on the show.
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