ESPN college football analyst Mark May vilified the game officials who worked Brigham Young's thrilling 28-27 triumph over the University of Washington yesterday on ESPN's College Game Day, a rant that was replayed repeatedly on ESPN's conglomerate of networks yesterday and today.

First, the facts. Brigham Young and Washington played a classic, back-and-forth battle that ended in a BYU victory when the Cougars blocked a 35-yard point-after try (PAT) with just two seconds to play that would have tied the game. The PAT was penalized 15 yards when Husky quarterback Jake Locker flung the football airborne over his shoulder in celebration after scoring a three-yard touchdown that gave his team a chance to tie the game.

Now, with apologies to Paul Harvey, here's the rest of the story. May called the decision to penalize the Husky signalcaller 'horrendous' and 'inexcusable' because it was administered at the very end of the game, taking the game out of the hands of the players. May took a second shot at an official in a different game, clowning an official for colliding with a player by calling the guilty back judge overweight and out of shape. Yes, the official was in error, but was the personal attack needed? Could it have been the official simply made one mistake in one game of a career that could possibly span a generation's worth of games?

Put another way, I don't believe this to be sports journalism at it's highest evolution, something ESPN has started to show less and less of in recent years.

Mark May engaged in, at best, lazy reporting as it relates to opinion-based sports journalism and at worst, became another shill voice for the millions who don't know the first thing about the game as they sit on their couch with a bag of Cheetos and mug of beer. May seemed more interested in pushing the easy perception than the actual reality, like the handful of loathsome sports talk radio jockeys, opportunists with a microphone siding up with the many who live in the fog of alcohol-stained, foul-mouthed slurs directed toward officials on any given Saturday in any given stadium.

I don't mind that May doesn't agree with the call, nor would I dare take away his right to opine as much. To defend May, he's a former college football player and established college football journalist who usually elocutes flawlessly with equal parts wit and wisdom. It's the venom that he spewed forth onto the officials and the omission of all the facts in making his opinion known that I take exception with. It's okay to have any opinion as long as you're fair to the principals in the story when presenting your opinion.

May wasn't fair, instead taking advantage of two situations to make himself look like a hero to the millions of fans, many of whom have never officiated a down of football, much less the PAC-10, in their lives. Did he explain that the NCAA is requiring officials to flag all extraordinary celebrations, including throwing the football, as celebration fouls? Did he ask an officiating coordinator for opinion? (you can't tell me ESPN doesn't have access to those types of contacts on deadline) Did he report that all Division I officials have viewed the DVD put forth by the NCAA and the College Football Officials (CFO) association that specifically targets this type of celebration?

May didn't tell the whole story of the missed PAT, either. After blocking the kick, BYU was penalized with an identical 15-yard celebration penalty when the Cougar sideline spilled into the middle of the field in celebration. Why did May omit this? Because the subsequent play didn't result in any change to the score. If the penalty against BYU had resulted in a safety to give Washington a one-point win, would that penalty have been lampooned as 'horrendous', too?

There's no clock time applied to PAT situations, meaning the officials applied the same correct foul to the Cougars at exactly the same juncture of the game as they had applied to the Huskies with perfect consistency, something May ignored in proving his perspective to be lacking when it comes to considering all aspects of this officiating story.

Don't believe me? Do you think I'm just taking up for the officials because I'm a fellow official? Consider the two head coaches quoted in the game story, ironically found at ESPN.com on both Saturday and Sunday.

Said Washington head coach Tyrone Willingham: "It's one that they almost have to call. It really should be a no-call, but it's one they have to call when they see it."

If anyone knows about unfair in college football, it's Tyrone Willingham. This is a man who just suffered a crushing defeat, a man best remembered for being removed from his dream job at Notre Dame in a manner that truly was callous and horrendous. Did Willingham play the victim card? Did Willingham play the blame game? No, Willingham took the high road and exercised a leader's perspective.

How this man wasn't good enough to lead Notre Dame's football program remains a question as baffling as where Jimmy Hoffa rests.

BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall also responded in kind. Asked in a different locker room without the benefit of hearing Willingham's answer, Mendelhall said: "I didn't see it, but I do know this, that throughout the entire game, there were all kinds of plays on both sides -- that was the most visible play -- but celebration is a penalty. Whether it was or not, I didn't see it, but if it was it should have been called. Even if it was our team, it should have been called. The rules are the rules."

Even Locker exercised some perspective in the moment of post game afterthought captured by reporters. "I just was excited. I like to play the game with emotion and it got the best of me."

Doesn't sound like coaches and student-athletes playing the blame game but rather, coaches and student athletes who know the rules, understand the responsibility that goes into officiating a game and are unwilling to engage in conduct that sullies themselves or their university. Sadly, that doesn't move copy, drive website hits or sell network advertising.

May also didn't tell viewers that coaches -- not officials -- write the rules, which would explain why the coaches understood and defended the call in the face of reporters eager to elicit a damning quote towards officials. Yes, ESPN quoted the NCAA rule that vindicated the officials, but didn't read the edict in the book that states: "When officiating a game, certain rules are to be ignored by the officials in certain situations as they relate to time, score and outcome. Officials are to specifically ignore unsportsmanlike penalties when the outcome of the game is in doubt."

That was omitted because it doesn't exist, in any rulebook, in any sport, at any level.

The rules are the rules, like Willingham, Locker and Mendenhall all admitted. When it's 35-0 in the fourth quarter, you can pass on calls like an unsportsmanlike penalty, but when the game's outcome remains in the balance and the score matters, so do the rules and their proper administration.

A knowledgeable football fan doesn't need May to tell them as much.

~T.C. Cameron is the author of Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, available at major and not-so-major retailers now!