October 6, 2005

Whittingham reprimanded for comments about ACC refs

Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham has been reprimanded by the Mountain West Conference after his post-game comments critical of the officials in the Utes' 31-17 lost to North Carolina.

Whittingham's comments:

We've been very good penalty-wise up until this game. All I can say is I'm quite thankful we don't have to play a game with an ACC refereeing crew again this year. That was miserable and I'll leave it at that.

The Utes had 101 yards worth of penalties (12 penalties in all including one that called back a defensive touchdown.) Mountain West officials said the comments violated conference sportsmanship standards.

After the reprimand, Whittingham responded:

My comment regarding ACC officials was unfortunate and poor judgment on my part. You can't beat a good team when you commit five turnovers.

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