The officials are not to blame for Washington's loss

First and foremost let's go ahead and talk about the end of the BYU and Washington game.  Washington surprised me and hung with BYU eventually scoring what should have been the tying touchdown with 2 second left.  Locker turned towards his teammates, threw the ball in the air, and celebrated.  Nothing he did was to taunt BYU, he simply wanted to celebrate a huge play in the game.  Locker's problem is that the NCAA rule book specifically addresses what he did.  Rule 9, Section 2, Article 1 clearly prohibits throwing the ball into the air after a touchdown.  My problem is with the rule, not the officials.  These officials, who were PAC 10 by the way in a non-conference game, interpreted the rule correctly and should not face ridicule.  However, this is a ridiculous rule and should be changed.  Every year the NCAA seems to try and take a little bit more fun out of the game.  Any intelligent person can see the difference in celebration and taunting/rubbing it in.  College football officials are being paid good money and it's a problem if the NCAA does not think they are capable of making this judgement decision.

Let's jump back to the game.  Even after the penalty, Washington was moved back to the 17 yard line which sets up the kicker for a 34 yard kick.  Obviously a kick from 19 is easier but college kickers not named Daniel Lincoln are generally good from that distance.  Washington's ensuing PAT chance was blocked by what looked like 3 or 4 players from BYU and that happens whether it's a 19 or a 34 yard kick.  If he pulled it and it would have been good from closer than Washington would be sitting on better ground to contest this, but that was not the case.  The Washington offensive line collapsed on the kick and that is why they lost the game by one.  This game was decided on the field, not by the officials.