BR-51 Texas lost a 45-44 heartbreaker to BR-48 California this weekend because of a missed extra point that would have tied the game.
During the game, Golden Bears’ players and fans reacted negatively to Texas linebacker Ed Freeman going down after a play without an apparent injury before a Cal play. Bears’ quarterback Jared Goff threw his hands up in disbelief to the referee, and the whole crowd in Berkeley booed Freeman, implicitly accusing him of faking the injury to slow down the Cal offense or get them out of rhythm.
Turns out Freeman suffered a pretty serious shoulder surgery; he will be out for 6-8 weeks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFE_okb_ltc
The replay indicates that Freeman could have run off the field with no assistance, but he couldn’t get off in time. So instead of burning a timeout or risking a penalty the Texas sideline told him to just go down. You can see why the whole stadium started booing, even though in retrospect the fans seem like the bad guys in the story.
The lesson here: don’t boo when a guy goes down — boo if the guy who went down comes back into the game two plays later.
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