In an unprecedented act of athletic jurisprudence, sources report college football referee Alan Ward decided he was just going to leave this one up to the crowd.
“To be honest, I didn’t really see what happened at the end of the play,” said Ward. “The blue team is saying the running back stepped out of bounds, the red team is saying he didn’t step out of bounds, and I’m just thinking to myself that either scenario could be true. I mean really, who’s to say?”
Eyewitness accounts report that Ward immediately called for the play to go under review. “That way, I could pretend to watch the video replay while having more time to strain my ears to listen for what the majority of the fans were yelling,” said Ward.
Sources also report that Ward spent a fair amount of time deliberating with the other referees before making his decision.
“I consulted with the other refs, one of whom said he thought he saw a lot of blue fans gesticulating wildly in the stands that the player had gone out of bounds. But last time I looked, I saw a bunch of red fans calling for just the opposite ruling. So this one’s a real head-scratcher.”
“If only we knew what the people watching the game from home were thinking,” Ward later added. “It seems to me they probably had the best view of what went down.”
At press time, Ward was seen calling for each of the crowd members to hold up “one finger for in bounds” and “two for out.”
