[EKUAlum05]

EKU, I understand its a safety issue, but what about a ref warning a player to buckle his chin strap and they player never listens. Ive seen it tons of times where a player on more than one or two occasion didnt have their mouth peices in. Its a very rare call. Most time you will see the ref just say something to the player about putting it in, but I have never ever once in the games I have seen, a ref throw a flag for a mouth peice not being in.

I totally agree.Typically this is not a called penalty. But, rules are rules, and the fact that Fugate was warned multiple times makes the arguement even harder. The ref apparently had mentioned that Breathitt was also being warned about their chin straps too FWIW.

Very unfortunate that the penalty was called and whether a flag should play a role in the outcome is a hot topic, but at the same time I think any Breathitt fan who simply writes this up to "home cooking" and blames that call for costing them the game is out of line. Additionally, it wasn't like this penalty occurred on the last play of the game, Breathitt had chances all night to win the game and didn't get it done.