College football fans will likely be talking about the 2018 Rose Bowl for quite some time.
Long considered the “Grandaddy of Them All,” and the oldest of the bowl games, this year’s Rose Bowl needed overtime for the first time in its history to determine a winner — and a berth in Monday’s national championship game.
Georgia rallied to beat Oklahoma in double OT, 54-48, to cap an instant classic.
Two men with Carroll County ties — Colin Formulak and Jim Hyson — got a chance to experience the game first-hand.
Formulak, a Mount Airy resident, and Hyson, a 1978 Francis Scott Key graduate who now lives in Waynesboro, Va., have been college officials in the Atlantic Coast Conference for several years. They earned spots on the ACC crew that was picked to officiate the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1.
Hyson, 57, served as the umpire on the crew, meaning he spent most of the game in position behind the defensive line and linebackers. Formulak, 51, was the line judge, which had him roaming the sideline.
They were two of seven officials working the 104th Rose Bowl, a game that featured two of the top teams in the nation. Oklahoma had star quarterback Baker Mayfield, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. Georgia boasted standout running backs Nick Chubb and Sony Michel.
More than 92,000 fans packed the stadium in Pasadena, California. More than 26 million people watched the game on TV. Yet for officials such as Formulak and Hyson, the experience was as business-like as possible.
“Once the opening kickoff [happens] and you get into that first series, it’s really like officiating any other game,” said Hyson, a former college football player at Virginia and a Carroll County Sports Hall of Famer. “You’re so focused on what’s going on that every now and then a flag flies and you hear the crowd, and they either boo or cheer.”
Hyson had the distinction of throwing the first flag of the game, an illegal hands to the face call in the first quarter, but the penalty was declined. In fact, there were a mere seven accepted penalties in the game.
“When things are tight and the clock is going down, really you want to start to really focus on every single snap,” Formulak said. “Your concentration goes up on a high level. It’s best to come out of there when no one’s talking about us. And when we’re completely invisible — that’s when it’s a good thing.”
Formulak said he got his start as a football official 20 years ago when he and a fellow officer in the Naval Reserves were quizzing each other on the rules of the game. His friend challenged him to give officiating a try, he said, and so began a side gig that took Formulak around the country to games in the Colonial, Ivy, and Patriot leagues.
In 2011, Formulak became a ACC official.
Hyson has been working in the conference since 2005, after getting his start at age 29 and doing games in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference, among others. He and Formulak eventually spent time together on the same officiating crew for ACC games.
Both men said the Rose Bowl was perhaps the most high profile game they’ve worked, and they’ve had the chance to be on crews for ACC Championship games and the annual Army-Navy showdown.
The Rose Bowl won’t be soon forgotten by either of them, however.
“Despite the pressure, it was a pretty easy game to officiate,” Hyson said. “That falls on the players. … They just showed up to play football. They knew what was on the line. Everything was ‘Yes sir, no sir,’ any time I had to talk to one of them. You don’t get that in some games.”
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Added Formulak: “You had two heavyweights out there, very skilled, very fast, playing football. And that’s really what you want from those teams. … It’s a very special experience and opportunity, and I’m very honored to be a part of it.”
