And now, 20 Final Thoughts from college football’s Week 1 (Sunday and Monday games still pending), where eight months of angst over lawsuits and gambling scandals gave way to … angst over the officiating, of course.1. I’ve seen my share of miraculous finishes over the years, and I’ve seen my share of controversial officiating moments. Saturday night at the Big House, an officiating controversy sucked all the enjoyment out of a miracle ending.2. Western Michigan should have left Ann Arbor as the second four-touchdown MAC underdog in three days to knock off a Big Ten foe. (More on UMass-Rutgers later.) After allowing an opening-drive touchdown, the Broncos’ defense had pitched a shutout the rest of the way and batted down Bryce Underwood’s last-ditch Hail Mary with no time left on the clock to pull out what should have been a 12-7 upset. Until the Big Ten officials came back on the field following a replay review and announced one second was being put back on the clock — much to the bewilderment of NBC officiating expert Terry McAulay.You know what happened next. Underwood launched another one 47 yards to the end zone, this time caught by former Utah tight end JJ Buchanan. Michigan won 13-12. Fans stormed the field. Coach Kyle Whittingham, having just avoided a disastrous Wolverines debut, seemed more confused than anything in his postgame interview.What in the world just happened at Michigan?Austin Meek3. In 2009, Big 12 officials put one second back on the clock in the Texas-Nebraska conference championship, which allowed the Horns to kick a BCS Championship Game-clinching field goal. Conspiracies flew. But that one at least could have gone either way. In this one, any neutral viewer watching the NBC broadcast saw the clock hit 0:00 with the ball still in the air.But to the Big Ten’s credit, it released a statement two hours after the game that included a video of what the officials saw and audio of their real-time conversation. Sure enough, viewed from just behind the play, Western Michigan safety Micah Davis jumped from out of bounds and touched the ball, rendering the play dead, with one second left on the official game clock. Which, the conference said, gets synced up with “all broadcast cameras used for the replay system” 85 minutes before kickoff. But somehow that’s not what we saw on TV.Helping defuse the situation, MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher then issued a statement indicating that the Big Ten’s explanation and audio/video were sufficient.But let me be clear: It is incomprehensible how, in 2026, conferences still employ the officials who work the league’s own nonconference games. There are enough officiating conspiracies as it is without introducing an obvious conflict of interest.