ESPN broadcaster forgets rules on penalty

The beginning of the college football season oftentimes results in some mistakes from teams on the field as they get into the flow of the season. And during Friday’s broadcast of the Oklahoma Sooners matchup against the Temple Owls, ESPN broadcaster Andre Ware needed a bit of a reminder of the intentional grounding rules in college football.

In the third quarter of the game, Oklahoma quarterback Jackson Arnold threw a third-down pass out of bounds near the goal line with 7:57 remaining in the third quarter.

After the play, the ESPN broadcast crew — play-by-play man Anish Shroff and color analyst Andre Ware — began to discuss whether intentional grounding should be called.

“I don’t know if anybody is in the area,” said Ware. “It just kind of looked like he may have gotten away with one.”

“Yeah, the question is was he outside the tackle box? And did the ball get passed the line of scrimmage? If that’s the case, no grounding,” said Schroff.

Schroff’s assessment of the replay was correct. As long as Arnold was outside the tackle box and the ball passed the line of scrimmage, the correct call would be for the officials to not call intentional grounding.

However, officials did call intentional grounding just seconds after Schroff’s assessment of the play. Ware then continued on to adamantly say that this was the correct call because there was no Oklahoma player in the area.

“Yeah, there is no one there,” said Ware. “No one in that area when he threw it. Checked two boxes but he needed a receiver in the area for the third box.”

ESPN rules analyst Matt Austin then joined Ware and Schroff to explain that as Schroff said, a receiver is not needed in the area as long as Arnold was out of the tackle box and the ball made it past the line of scrimmage.

“Yeah guys, unless I’m missing something the quarterback was definitely outside the tackle box. He got the ball past the line of scrimmage. He doesn’t have to have a receiver in the area for that. So I’m not sure why there is a flag here,” said Austin.

Ultimately, it seems like the officials called intentional grounding because there was some doubt about whether the ball crossed the line of scrimmage. But that is reviewable and ultimately, the flag was picked up.

Throughout this entire process, Ware was sure that there needed to be a receiver in the area for the pass to not be intentional grounding, which simply isn’t the case.

At the very least, this is a learning moment for him as we go forward in the college football season. But let’s just hope viewers watching at home didn’t listen to his incorrect assessment of the rule.

[ Awful Announcing on X , Photo Credit: ESPN]

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