Brigham Young used a Bear and a near bear hug to topple Notre Dame.
Bear Bachmeier is a heck of a story. BYU’s quarterback ran for two touchdowns, caught another and threw for the game-winner. No amount of officiating blunders alters Bachmeier’s brilliance.
The officiating gaffes are a tiring story, but one we keep hearing, nearly every weekend, about a team getting robbed by the officials.
Did BYU commit pass interference in the end zone on the final play of a 28-24 victory? To my eyes, it looked like it. The contact looked like more than incidental hand-fighting.
Evan Johnson used his left hand
to grab the arm of Notre Dame wide receiver Jaden Greathouse. Just like the Georgia-Alabama game the previous weekend, the winning team got away with a lot of contact on a pass into the end zone, and a penalty could have — not definitely would have, but might have — altered the game’s outcome.
But, hey, pass interference is a judgement call that can’t be adjudicated with replay, right?
Well, if you can believe this, the pass interference no-call was the second-most controversial part of that play.
Was this pass interference? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/WVHPkWmDxi
— uSTADIUM (@uSTADIUM) October 18, 2026
Multiple replay angles showed stadium clocks had one second remaining on the dial when Notre Dame’s pass landed incomplete in the end zone. The pass came on 1st-and-goal. In other words, regardless of what you think about the contact in the end zone, Notre Dame should have gotten another play from the 8-yard line with one second left.
The Big 12 admitted the mistake.
“It was determined that time remained on the clock when the ball hit the ground and the play was incorrectly cleared by the replay officiating crew,” the Big 12 said in a statement after the game. “The Conference will conduct a complete review of its end-of-game officiating process in advance of next week's games.”
Mercy.
How does this keep happening? In September, the Big Ten added a phantom second that only its secluded replay crew could see, allowing Michigan a Hail Mary mulligan and a walk-off victory against Western Michigan.
Now, a Big 12 crew ignored a second that everybody could see.
While conducting the review of its processes, the Big 12 might want to start with this addendum to its end-of-game procedure: Make sure the game has actually ended before you say the game has ended.
How many times isn’t a college football game stopped to review what seems like the most obvious or even trivial matter? And yet, nobody thought to check whether the clock actually read 0:00 when CJ Carr’s pass hit the ground?
The obvious reaction here is to say Notre Dame was robbed, but BYU got robbed, too — robbed of the chance for its defense to stop one more play and leave no doubt about which team deserved the ‘W.’
Now, the Irish get to put an asterisk next to this loss. Notre Dame can remind the selection committee that it would’ve won this game if not for the officials. Never mind that it still might not have won this game if the officials had called this correctly.
“I know people are going to look for me to put blame on somebody else,” Irish coach Marcus Freeman said after this loss. “That's not what we do around here. We own it.”
Since when? Does that mentality apply to Freeman’s boss, too?
I’m half-surprised Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua hasn’t already called a Festivus-inspired news conference where he can begin an airing of grievances.
Last year, when the selection committee rejected two-loss Notre Dame from the playoff, Bevacqua gathered the press so he could unload on the ACC for having the nerve to support one of its members, Miami, instead of backing independent Notre Dame for the final playoff spot. Bevacqua maintained that a playoff bid “was stolen” from the Irish.
When Notre Dame didn’t get the playoff spot, it packed up its gear and quit the season instead of playing BYU in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
By skipping the bowl, Notre Dame didn’t risk another loss, and it could keep the focus on its playoff omission without the inconvenience of a little thing like a loss to the Cougars to interrupt its snub narrative.
When the Irish finally played BYU this season, they lost a game in which they got outplayed, outwitted and outlasted. The officials botched the ending, though, giving Notre Dame a caveat to this loss.
Fortunately for Notre Dame, the rest of its schedule remains tailor-made to playoff pursuits.
Fortunately for BYU, this victory applies a layer of body armor to its playoff pursuits. The Cougars had a case for an at-large playoff bid the past two seasons, but the committee didn’t take them seriously either time.
A win against the Irish would force the committee to treat BYU’s candidacy more seriously, and the Cougars also will have a chance to remove any doubt by winning the Big 12.
Unfortunately for all, college football officials flubbed again.
The contact on the final play was controversial.
The clock was at 0:01.
A final play that should have happened never happened.
BYU got the win, Notre Dame got the asterisk, and we all got robbed of a properly officiated ending.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: BYU got the win, Notre Dame got the whine, and we all got robbed
