No. 6 Indiana arrived at Michigan Stadium as the defending national champion, and a second-quarter flag against Kyle Whittingham’s Michigan quickly became the talking point. A roughing-the-passer call on freshman Tariq Boney gave the Hoosiers a first down on an incomplete pass, and the FOX broadcast team made their feelings known right away.
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On FOX’s Big Noon Saturday live broadcast, announcers Joel Klatt and Gus Johnson immediately reacted to the call, shared by Awful Announcing on X.
“Oh, come on, guys. What are we doing?” Klatt said. And Johnson added, “Come on now. My goodness.”
Klatt continued. “I understand protecting the quarterback. But when you graze with a thumb across the forehead, like, what are we doing?”
The play came with Indiana leading 3-0 in the second quarter, at 1st & 10. Quarterback Josh Hoover threw to receiver Nick Marsh; the pass fell incomplete, and edge rusher Boney was flagged for 15 yards. That moved Indiana from its own 26 to 41 and gave it a fresh set of downs. Without the flag, the Hoosiers would have faced second-and-10 at its 26. Kicker Nico Radicic later hit a 34-yard field goal to make it 6-0.
The timing stung because Kyle Whittingham’s defense had been doing its job. The Wolverines held Indiana to 87 total yards with 5:45 left in the second quarter, and Hoover had completed just 4 of 12 passes. The 15 penalty yards were within two yards of Indiana’s longest play from scrimmage at that point.
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy also weighed in on X with a clip of the play. “These refs might as well be wearing Hoosiers uniforms. How is that bad? How is that roughing the passer?”
A week earlier, Ohio State cornerback Jermaine Mathews Jr. was called for targeting on a hit on Hoover during Indiana’s final drive. Officials overturned the targeting call but still assessed 15 yards for roughing the passer.
Then Ohio State fans accused the officials of favoring Indiana. Ohio State still won 19-15, ending Indiana’s 22-game winning streak. Klatt had also said on his show that the officiating “has been hard,” and that officials had directly affected results.
Michigan entered the game at 4-2, fresh off a 21-18 win over Penn State, its first conference win. Indiana came in at 6-1, trying to bounce back from that loss in Bloomington.
That wasn’t the only call that made Whittingham mad during the ongoing game. Later in the second quarter, the officials didn’t call a pass interference on Indiana after a defender clearly ran into JJ Buchanan before he could get to a pass thrown by Carr.
On the personal foul, fans reacted just as strongly on social media. “I am an Indiana fan. That was a TERRIBLE call,” a fan wrote.
Even a supporter of the team that benefited saw it this way. The flag turned an incomplete pass into a 15-yard gain and a first down for Indiana, and the Hoosiers went on to score on the drive.
“If a thumb grazing a forehead is a penalty, every barber in America is one bad haircut away from a 15-yarder,” another fan wrote.
Here, the fan was joking about how little contact Joel Klatt described on the broadcast, saying Boney only grazed Hoover’s forehead with a thumb.
“It’s absurd how many flags college and NFL refs throw anymore. Ruins the game,” a comment read.
Indiana has now had back-to-back games with a controversial roughing-the-passer call involving Hoover. Both calls gave the Hoosiers 15 yards.
“At this point just put flags on QB seriously. This is bull****,” one more fan wrote.
At the time of publishing, the game is in the fourth quarter, and Indiana is leading 6-3.