Unless my eyes deceived, and admittedly that is possible, the UAB defender that blocked the kick achieved the necessary elevation illegally. Also, I saw no movement or unsportsmanlike conduct on the XPs that were missed. Barnes had an off day and I feel badly for the guy. All of us have days at work when we make mistakes.
Why? Teams are routinely penalized for too many players on the field when the ball is in play. Also, penalties are routinely enforced when the penalty does not affect the play. I'm not questioning your assessment, but a penalty certainly should have been called whether or not a Tech coach made it an issue. It was extremely obvious. CUSA has been overly accommodating to UAB, often to the detriment of member schools that actually fulfill their obligations.
A penalty against the defense as time expires results in an untimed down. Penalties that don't impact a play are called routinely. There were plenty of uncalled infractions that did affect the play throughout the game, like UABs right tackle holding on practically every pass play. Yes, our team played poorly yesterday but still could have won the game. I am not blaming our loss on the refs as our team should have played better. But days like yesterday happen to every team and seemingly small things at the time can alter who wins and loses.
An SEC crew might have called it. But, as I said, it's a CUSA crew and the game is in Birmingham. They're not going to call it. Now if Skip or any of our coaches had run over to the White Hat and said "there were more than 11 on the field during the play and we're challenging it," then they would have had to throw a flag or gone to the replay official for some help.
Don't put yourself in a position where dumb/crooked refs can screw you out of a win. UAB didn't have a program for 2 years. We should have been blowing them out.
Do we agree that the first XP he missed, a 35 yarder, should have had the 3 yard line as the LOS? I certainly don't know, but if yesterday proves to be an anomaly, IMO it will not impact his chances of being drafted, but could lower the round. However, I think he will be an UFA (or whatever they call it) and yesterday wouldn't have changed that even had he been perfect in his attempts.
Just a question. Since Barnes caught the blocked kick in the air behind the line of scrimmage on 3rd down, does that mean we could have retained possession for 4th down if there was time left on the clock? I thought no but saw a weird call on something like that in high school not long ago.
Which was my point, so if yesterday was an anomaly I don't see how it will change that status. Anyway, do we agree that it was a very poor call that set up a 35 yd XP attempt?
I just turned on the Packers @ Cowboys and the first play I saw was somehow a PF called against the Packers. Those are the kind of calls that went against us yesterday. I know you are a big D fan, but if you saw the play and replay I think you would agree that was about a bad a penalty call as an official could make.