No. 10 Penn State football escaped its annual White Out with a huge 28-20 win over No. 22 Auburn Saturday night, but it wasn’t without a little controversy.

Following the game, fans took to Twitter to sound off on the night’s officiating crew that was borrowed from the SEC as part of the Nittany Lions’ home-and-home agreement with Auburn. Big Ten officials will correspondingly travel to Jordan–Hare Stadium next season.

So… the refs just lost track of downs? pic.twitter.com/1pcjMXJGQI

— Onward State (@OnwardState) September 19, 2021

Most complaints centered on a strange mid-game series that saw Penn State get called for intentional grounding on first down. Penn State’s ensuing play appeared to be 2nd & 15, but markers on the sideline indicated it was instead third down. Penn State then punted on 3rd & 11 despite being told it was fourth down.

In a statement, the SEC said the game’s officiating crew discovered the error during a media timeout but couldn’t correct it. Here’s what James Franklin had to say postgame:

Here’s James Franklin on the series where referees seemed to take a down away from Penn State: pic.twitter.com/TUfn5wrYEC

— Onward State (@OnwardState) September 19, 2021

Naturally, Nittany Lions fans rationally reacted to the unusual exchange:

So either the fix was in or they are totally incompetent. One of the two must be true.

— SportsPhilly (@New2Normal) September 19, 2021

When the ref had to rule the Auburn player down on the fumble recovery for a touchdown (which was the correct call) he had a look on his face like “sssshhhhiiiiiitttttttt I don’t wanna rile these folks up.” He knew they had a bad night as a crew.

— John O (@SpecialSauce747) September 19, 2021

Always play 13 players – 12 plus the refs. Couple of other really bad obvious calls. Glad they still pull it out even against 13

— Chris (@ChristyleeW74) September 19, 2021

Exactly… that whole SEC ref crew needs to be suspended for at least 1 game.

— Hollow McDoogle (@HollowMcdoogle) September 19, 2021

There needs to be consequences! This was the absolute worst officiating I have ever witnessed. If this crew goes unpunished we are telling officials this type of corruption and cheating is acceptable. Period.

— Nicole Leshok (@NLeshok) September 19, 2021

Will go down in PSU FB lore similar to ‘93 vs Michigan when we had a timeout taken away for crowd noise….

— Hutch Pegler (@HutchPegler) September 19, 2021

Insanity. We beat 2 teams tonight

— n/a (@xanvilpinatax) September 19, 2021

@coachjfranklin that was @McGloinQB11 era bad officiating. Game changing calls the team had to overcome.

— PSU_Ranger (@PSU_Ranger) September 19, 2021

How could they not simply count 1-4, like pre school

— Tim J. Debias (@BuckWhisperer_) September 19, 2021

They were worse than the crew JoePa banned after that Iowa game

— AQUASURE1977 (@Adammarc77) September 19, 2021

Then the 4th down where they blow a phantom whistle while the play is still going on. The most inept officiating crew we have seen in yrs.

— tmat2021 (@tmat2021) September 19, 2021

Wow. Fire the crew

— mlda25 (@scotty_manziel) September 19, 2021