Jonathan Smith can’t be a happy camper these days.
Not only is he firmly on the hot seat with three games left in the regular season to attempt to prove himself and make a bowl game, but he’s also been dealing with some unbelievably poor officiating mistakes over the past couple of games that really changed the momentum of the game.
Against Michigan two weeks ago in East Lansing, Malcolm Bell timed a snap perfectly, sacked Bryce Underwood, and jarred the ball loose and it was picked up by Jordan Hall in a tight game.
The turnover would have given Michigan State the ball near midfield with a chance to go down and make it a one-score game. Instead, a late flag signaled that Bell was offsides despite the replay clearly showing that he timed the snap perfectly and didn’t do anything illegal. Michigan was given the ball back and it ended up scoring shortly after to put the game out of reach.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, that bad call was followed up by the refs overturning an interference call in overtime at Minnesota on a third-and-short play. It was a clear interference on replay, and the ball was even spotted to reflect the penalty with the teams about to line up for the next snap, but about 90 seconds later, the officials picked up the flag and moved the ball back for fourth down.
Two unreal penalty decisions changed the trajectory of the game. Michigan State would end up losing the Michigan game and also the Minnesota game.
While the Spartans may not have won if the calls went the correct way, it would have at least ensured that the loss was 100 percent on them and not aided by some blown rulings.
According to Smith, though, the Big Ten admitted it was wrong on both calls.
Jonathan Smith at today’s press conference:
— Stephen Brooks (@StephenM_Brooks) November 10, 2025
- QB plan TBD by end of week. Playing both is possible.
- Optimistic Frazier, McCray, Buckley could return Sat.
- Big Ten got back to them on Bell/U-M and the Minnesota ending and sounds like the league admitted it erred.
All this does is prove that the Big Ten doesn’t have good enough officials right now, and they should probably re-evaluate their group this offseason. There’s no way that two massive calls get blown like that against the same team and without any reasoning as to why they overturned some plays.
Big Ten fans deserve better.