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Fort Worth, Texas • Thanks to a bungled television replay call emanating from the replay booth he was working in, BYU employee Chad Bunn has lost his gig working for the Mountain West Conference.
The MWC announced Friday that athletic directors from the league, after a conference call, have banned school employees — such as Bunn, who has worked as a video coordinator for BYU for 21 years — or school alumni from one of the three replay booth positions when their school is playing. No longer can the person known as the "replay communicator" be affiliated with the host school.
Bunn held that position last Saturday when the head replay official, Mike Angelis of Reno, Nev., botched a call after officials on the field ruled that BYU's J.J. Di Luigi was down before he fumbled away the ball in the third quarter of BYU's 24-21 win over San Diego State at LaVell Edwards Stadium.
Seen in a Fort Worth hotel Friday, Bunn declined to talk about incident, or Friday's decision from the league. The Cougars meet TCU today at 2 p.m. MDT at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
Bunn, Angelis and the third person in the booth that day, called the "replay technician" were suspended by the league earlier this week.
In announcing the change to "existing protocols," the MWC said the ban previously applied to the head replay official, and not the other two replay staffers. Now, it applies to the replay official and the communicator, meaning that the replay technician can still be a school employee or alum.
Thursday, a source with intimate knowledge of how the replay system works and knowledge of what happened last weekend in Provo, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the suspensions of Bunn and the technician were blatantly unfair and that Angelis alone should bear the responsibility for the blown call.
"At the end of the day, [the replay official] puts on the headset and tells the referee his decision," the source said. "It is totally his call. It is against the rules for the communicator or the technician to put on the headset."
The league also said Friday that it will initiate a "comprehensive review" of the MWC football instant replay system and procedures and likely will have a full report at the spring meetings in May. BYU will leave the conference in June.
The communicator's job in the booth is to work with the television crew and provide the best video angles and views so the head replay official can make the right call — whether to uphold the call made on the field (as was done Saturday), or to call for a reversal.
Friday's decision by the MWC makes it appear that Bunn was negligent in that regard. However, the source told The Tribune that he was "100 percent certain" that the replay official "was given every possible view [of the fumble] and he still made the wrong decision."
Several sources have told The Tribune that several schools in the MWC have employees in the replay booth, and almost all have alums working there. The MWC assigns and pays for all three positions.
The policy is effective immediately.
drew@sltrib.com Twitter: @drewjay