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https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...ns-while-officiating-college-basketball-game/
Ref from Rams-Saints controversy gets confronted by fans while officiating college basketball game
It's been a rough week for Bill Vinovich
by
John Breech
The controversy from the NFC Championship Game doesn't look like it's going to go away anytime soon for referee Bill Vinovich.
Less than a week after serving as the lead official in the Rams-Saints game, Vinovich was back in stripes on Thursday to officiate a college basketball game between BYU and St. Mary's, and let's just say, the crowd in Provo, Utah, didn't give him a very warm welcome.
At one point, one student sitting in the front row at the Marriott Center confronted him and asked if Nickell Robey-Colman should have been called for pass interference.
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The question from the student is believed to be the first time that Vinovich has publicly been asked about the play, which came near the end of the
Rams' 26-23 win over the
Saints in the NFC title game. With the win, the Rams advanced to
Super Bowl LIII, which
you can stream right here on CBSSports.com.
With 1:49 left to play in a 20-20 game and the Saints facing a third-and-10 from the Rams' 13-yard line,
Drew Brees dropped back and threw a pass to
TommyLee Lewis, who got
destroyed by Robey-Coleman well before the ball arrived.
Vinovich was asked about the play by a pool reporter following the game, but at that point, he still hadn't seen a replay of the no-call.
"It was a judgment call by the covering official," Vinovich said following NFC Championship. "I personally have not seen the play."
At this point, it's probably safe to say that he has seen a replay, but he definitely didn't feel like sharing his thoughts about it with a bunch of college students who spent most of their night taunting him. Some students even made a sign asking Vinovich not to screw their team over.
According
to a BYU radio host, Vinovich was not happy about the sign and he actually asked for it to be removed after the first media timeout of a game that BYU eventually won 71-66.
As for the controversial no-call, no one associated with the
NFL really seems willing to talk about it. Although Saints coach Asshole Face said
the league did admit to him that two penalties should have been called, the NFL still hasn't released a public statement.
The closest the league has come to publicly admitting that something went wrong on the play came Friday when Robey-Coleman was hit
with a $26,000 fine for an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit on Lewis.
With the league refusing to release a statement on the matter, that should make things interesting for next week, when Roger Goodell is scheduled to meet with the media for his annual Super Bowl week press conference (Jan. 30).
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