Conferences say refs erred in UW's defeat

It won't change the outcome of last Saturday's loss at Notre Dame.

But University of Washington officials Friday night were feeling a little bit better after being told by representatives of the Pac-10 Conference that there were a few calls missed in UW's 37-30 overtime loss at Notre Dame.

The game officials were from the Pac-10 while the replay booth officials were from the Big East.

In a statement relayed through Pac-10 associate commissioner Dave Hirsch, the conference said Friday that "after further consideration, both conferences have agreed that some calls in that game were missed by both the officials on the field and in the replay booth and we've moved on."

Hirsch said the conference would not detail which calls it was referencing or in what manner the calls were missed.

However, UW specifically questioned two — a reversal by replay of an apparent TD run by Chris Polk in the fourth quarter; and a later decision not to review a two-point conversion run by Notre Dame's Robert Hughes.

UW athletic director Scott Woodward called Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott to relay the school's concerns. Scott on Friday called Woodward to tell him of the joint decision by the two conferences that some calls had been missed.

"From our perspective, we went through the due process of evaluating the game and presenting our concerns to the league and we are really happy that they took our concerns into consideration and evaluated the game and came to a similar conclusion as we did," said UW spokesman Richard Kilwien.

Woodward had said earlier in the week that he felt it necessary to take his concerns to the conference office for two reasons — to spur a debate about the wisdom of having split crews (one conference on the field and another in the replay booth) and to improve officiating by pressing for accountability.

"There are going to be mistakes in every game," Woodward said. "What you try to do is get better and fix them so it doesn't happen [in the future]."

Woodward said "the non-review of the two-point conversion was a mistake." Many on the UW side thought Hughes was down.

UW coach Steve Sarkisian could have requested his own review of the play but said he didn't want to risk a time out — there was only 1:20 left in the game at the time and the Huskies had just one time out remaining. The two points gave Notre Dame a 30-27 lead and UW had just enough time to drive for a tying field goal.

Polk had an apparent six-yard TD run negated with just over seven minutes to go when the replay officials ruled him down just inside the one. That cost UW four points when the Huskies had to settle for a field goal.