Refs somehow decided this Oregon State TD catch was not a catch

It’s a brutal break for the Beavers.

College football’s back, which means college football officiating controversy is also back. Here’s the first one of the year:

Oregon State quarterback Jake Luton, flushed from the pocket, delivered a strike to diving receiver Noah Togiai in the front corner of Colorado State’s end zone. In real time, it looked like a clean catch. In slow motion, it still looks like a clean catch. But the on-field officials called it incomplete, and so did a video replay crew moments later.

Togiai was going to the ground as soon as the ball got to his hands, and he clearly got his left knee on the ground, in bounds, before hitting the sideline.

Clearly, then, the officials think Togiai let the ball hit the ground without having full control of it. That’s almost true. The ball definitely moves around while it’s pinned between Togiai’s body and his right arm, but it doesn’t look like he ever loses it — much less loses it while the ball’s contacting the ground. The ball’s allowed to touch the ground and move as long as the player doesn’t lose control of it.

From the NCAA’s rulebook:

If a player has control of the ball, a slight movement of the ball, even if it touches the ground, will not be considered loss of possession; he must lose control of the ball in order for there to be a loss of possession.

I don’t see a loss of ball control here. Do you?

So, maybe? This play looks clean. An unfortunate reality for Oregon State is that football’s rules require a hilariously high standard of certainty to overturn any call on the field: “indisputable video evidence,” the NCAA says, and I guess you could dispute this one if you wanted. It was the wrong call, but it’s sometimes hard to fix those.