Arkansas football was absolutely robbed of upset win over Auburn

Referees from the Auburn versus Arkansas football game should be ashamed as they costed the Razorbacks an upset win on the road.

“I was robbed by a little old lady on a motorized cart. And I didn’t even see it coming.”

That Dumb and Dumber quote by Jim Carrey now hits home for Arkansas. The Razorbacks just played their second-best game of the season after upsetting Mississippi State a week ago. The Razorbacks may have lost on a field goal with seven seconds left, but there’s no doubt that they should have come away with a huge road win over No. 13 Auburn.

Arkansas was the better team for most of the second half, even taking its first lead with 5:29 remaining in the game only to have the referees squander a call with 14 seconds left which should have benefitted Sam Pittman and the Razorbacks.

What was the call that controversially decided the game?

With 14 seconds left, it looked like Bo Nix avoided disaster by picking up a muffed snap and spiking it to stop the clock. The refs called it an intentional grounding because you aren’t allowed to spike a ball that hits the ground first. It was a loss of down and set up a long field goal.

But that wasn’t the issue. After looking at the replay, it was clear that Nix spiked the ball backwards which means it should have been a live ball and fumble on a backwards pass and Arkansas ended up recovering. The game should have been over.

It was a clear missed call and the refs even took it under review and stayed with the original ruling of an intentional grounding and loss of down. Auburn kicked the go-ahead field goal on the next play to win.

Arkansas should be in the SEC offices on Monday morning, making sure they know just how bad this call was blown and although an apology won’t change the outcome, at least the conference can admit it was wrong and punish the officials in charge.

We’ll put an asterisk next to this Arkansas “loss”.