NCAA Wrestling National Coordinator of Officials Breaks Silence in the Wake of Controversial Week of Bad Referee Calls

The NCAA Wrestling has a very huge fan following both inside and outside the United States. While this gives the league some quality exposure, it also brings it under scrutiny by thousands of pairs of eyes. While the 2023-24 season has been receiving cheers so far, Week 14 has brought some bad press to D1 Wrestling.

The heat from the crowd is usually directed toward wrestlers with unruly behavior. This time, however, the match officials faced this heat from fans. The reason for this was several bad calls made by the referees, which angered NCAA Wrestling fans. As a result, a social media post has revealed that the National Coordinator of Wrestling Officials has taken action on the matter.

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FloWrestling added a new tweet on X with the caption, “Mike McCormick, the National Coordinator of Wrestling Officials, sent out the following announcement following several controversial calls during this weekend’s NCAA wrestling action.” The announcement was sent to both match officials as well as NCAA coaches.

According to the announcement, “As a reminder, the only rule change this season regarding reaction time in takedown situations applies to the rear standing position/hand touch takedown, which has been eliminated. In all other takedown situations, reaction time still exists.” McCormick then proceeded to talk about the recent bad calls in NCAA Wrestling.

He noted, “During the last two weeks of wrestling competition, there were several scramble situations from the neutral position where takedowns were or were not awarded. In one of these situations, a takedown should have been awarded as control was established beyond reaction time.” This particular case was that of PSU’s Braeden Davis, which caused a massive social media storm by NCAA Wrestling fans.

The bad call that saved Braeden Davis from losing his first D1 match

Braeden Davis was competing against Vinny Kilkeary of Ohio State in the opening 125lbs bout of the PSU vs OSU dual. The final seconds of the match saw Kilkeary slamming Davis with a takedown just before the clock ran out. But, the NCAA Wrestling official for the match left everyone in disbelief as he didn’t award any points for the takedown.

This resulted in a controversial victory for PSU’s Davis, who was just one point ahead of his Ohio State counterpart. Mike McCormick quoted another instance where points were awarded, but then taken away after a video review. He stated that the NCAA Wrestling officials for these matches relied on the reaction time metric to score these moves.

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However, the National Coordinator of Wrestling Officials held that neither of these decisions should have relied on reaction timing. Despite all this, McCormick also stated that this was one instance where everyone could refine their skills. NCAA Wrestling officials are known for giving hundreds of excellent judgment calls every week, and a little of caution will ensure this is always the case.

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