Same here with the A&M. We had no chance in that game playing the refs. Didn't we get like 12 penalties in that game. That sucked for sure.
16 penalties to 2 if I'm not mistaken. Ours were made up of personal fouls and such and I think A&M's were a false start and offsides or somethin.
Mike Sherman was visibly upset both right after the game and during the press conference. I'm guessing because he knew with 100% certainty that the biggest win for A&M in years of which they had just accomplished was because of the officiating and that deep down he knew the agg's wouldnt've had a chance in hell in a properly officiated game.
Way too many 50/50 calls and calls that were up to officials interpretations were called on us that night. The Osbourne roughing the passer that set up the game winning field goal was the most egregious. Another one, that was brought to my attention the other day while on youtube, was an A&M lineman who was trailing a play hit Amukamara after the runner was down, no penalty called. Exact same situation with us, Henry hitting an A&M defender after Burkhead was clearly down and we got a penalty.
So many problems with that year and officiating, Iowa State had their MLB attempting to rip Burkhead's head off but when Legate pushed him off he gets the penalty. Maybe it was just that specific crew.
And yeah it seems like we've sort of been idling in neutral since that A&M game. Pelini was publicly rebuked for his outbursts, and maybe if we win that game we would be able to pull off the Championship game against Oklahoma. Before that game, we also had played better as a team on the road under Pelini, almost knocking off Texas Tech when they had Harrell and Crabtree and were ranked in the top 10, outside of the Oklahoma game in '08 our average margin of loss away from Lincoln (all games including bowls) was like 3 points. Since that game we've lost to a Washington team we beat by 35 earlier in 2010 by 14, and we haven't even come close in any of our B1G night away games.
But something feels different about this year. Just the feeling around the team to go along with a schedule where we lose the two best Leaders teams. Then there was the fact that the offense looked completely unstoppable against Georgia until we got in our own way/Georgia's athleticism won the 4th quarter. Just so many weapons on an offense that was already best in the Big 10 last year.