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The first-year coach took issue with an offsides call against his kickoff team, which ended up helping Florida gain much better field position. He said Florida was offsides several times on kickoffs, too.
But Mullen was particularly incensed about a replay review that didn’t go his way.
After Florida linebacker Devin Doe intercepted a Tyson Lee pass at MSU’s 23-yard line, he had the ball knocked out of his hands near the goal line, and a Bulldog player recovered it in the end zone. A touchdown was called, and that was upheld by the replay official to give Florida a 29-13 lead with 8 minutes, 25 seconds left in the game.
“I’ve seen over and over views of the ball being out of his hands before he crossed the goal line,” Mullen said. “I don’t know why we even have replay right now in the Southeastern Conference if they are not going to utilize it.
“That’s twice that they’ve blown calls on the replay in our games resulting in big plays. And I think that’s unexcusable for that official, (who) I hope is severely punished if he ever works another SEC game again, because I think it is completely unacceptable.”
The other call he referred to occurred two weeks earlier in a 31-24 loss to Houston, when Lee was called for an illegal pass beyond the line of scrimmage, negating a 25-yard gain to Houston’s 4-yard line.
Public criticism of officials by coaches, players or support personnel is prohibited under SEC bylaw 10.5.4. The SEC did not return a call Sunday seeking comment.
Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino was reprimanded by the SEC on Thursday for his criticism of the crew that worked his team’s 23-20 overtime loss to Florida the previous Saturday. That crew, which also made a disputed foul call in the LSU-Georgia game, was suspended by the SEC for its performance.
Contact Brad Locke at 678-1571 or brad.locke@djournal.com
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