Sun Belt Reprimands Officiating Crew

NEW ORLEANS - The Sun Belt Conference acknowledges that there was a mistake in counting downs during the Georgia State and UL Lafayette football game this past Saturday. The officiating crew that worked the game has been reprimanded by Commissioner Karl Benson.



A loss of down occurred during the final drive of the second quarter when Georgia State had possession of the ball with less than a minute to go. After a series of penalties – most notably a false start, Georgia State should have had the ball on first down with 15 yards to gain. A timeout was taken to avoid a 10 second runoff and upon resumption of play, the down and distance was wrongly marked as second down and 15 yards to gain.



Sun Belt Coordinator of Officials Steve Shaw recognized the issue Saturday night and the sequence in question was reviewed and confirmed on Sunday. Both Shaw and Benson communicated with Georgia State representatives on Monday.



“The Sun Belt is committed to ensuring that our game officials, like our coaches and student-athletes, are held to a high standard,” said Benson. “When that standard is not met, we must acknowledge an error occurred.”





