The refs got the play on the field right the first time because they saw the play clearly and didn’t whistle the ball dead either due to Jessie or Loki. Instant Replay stole their conclusion on the field and thus their power.

First, the judgment on the field about the dead ball meant that the refs had to whistle it dead at that spot:

Rule 2-25, Article 4: Dead Ball Spot: The dead ball spot is the point at which the ball became dead.

The ball would have been ruled dead at the spot at which it was allegedly touched, about the 35.

Nor did the the official blow his whistle to call the ball dead under

Rule 4-1, Ball in Play, Dead Ball or Out of Bounds, Article 3, subsection K:
When a live ball not in player possession touches anything inbounds other than a player, a player’s equiment, an official, an official’s equipment or the ground (inadvertent-whistle provisions apply).

So, the referee’s judgment on the field (and esp. the Head Lineman’s) was that the ball had not been touched, for they let the play proceed to completion without any whistles, nor throwing of bags or hats to mark a spot (except for the intentional grounding flag they picked up). The play was live until Texas recovered the ball and the (new) offensive runner was tackled.

There was no basis for any Instant Replay. There was no field judgment to overturn.

Indeed, in the time before Instant Replay, this would have been Texas ball period. End of story.

The only dissent to this would be the placement of the ball, if it perhaps had gone out of bounds before Loki batted it in-bounds around the 40 (and a damn good play lost in this conundrum). But again, the judgment on the field was that it was a fair ball.

Well, going to the film, the head ref is parallel to the play less than 9 yards away, the Linesman is just behind the play (maybe 8 yards and closing and right there as Jessie reached out, and clearly seeing what Jessie did and then the Loki bat of the ball) and behind the Linesman is another ref following up. In the close-up of Jessie you can see the linesman’s back on the left. Definitive. Notice the refs ruled the ball at the ASU 43 and were ready to put it into play. Two, if not three, referees had a clear and unobstructed vision of the whole play.

So, in light of your question of whether the ref’s usurped power, did someone else usurp power?

There is a
225-page PDF of NCAA 2007 rules if you want to dig out more.

If they ruled a dead ball, the ball should have been spotted at the about Tx35 and the penalty walked off from there. The secondary question is if this personal foul was an automatic first down. So, the next play in this variation would have be either 4th down from the 20 or 1st down at the 20. There was no reason to go to the original spot, this was not an inadvertent whistle. The offensive team clearly lost yardage as the live ball went backwards.

I suspect that the refs surrendered their judgment and after doing that went brain dead and didn’t have any idea of what to do. They could have called a penalty for the team members being on the field but there is no penalty yardage for that (corrected for this year btw) and chances are the other team was on the field, too, because it is the most common transgression in football.

Personally, imho it was Rudy’s fault for massive stupidity on the football field, but then he got his.

Loki didn’t get credit for a heads-up play and #38 (Muck) didn’t get a fumble recovery.

Wells is correct about personal fouls. I’ve seen refs drop a flag at halftime because the festivities ran too long. Or even the infamous Sooner Schooer incident. And there is no limit. The famous incident about this is from HS, where a coach protested too much and his team went from being on the opponent’s 5 to their own 5, 90 yards worth.

The real question is who drops the flag on the refs if they are wrong?