The play itself was absurdly simple at first: Austin Alexander had just turned a blocked Missouri field-goal attempt into an 88-yard touchdown. The Kansas defender scooped up the loose ball at his own 12-yard line and took off, with the Missouri end zone 88 yards away. Then the broadcast cut back to the sideline.
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The celebration was still unfolding, but head referee Jason Autrey was clutching his leg, trying to stretch it out. Something had gone wrong while he was chasing the play.
Warren Sharp reported on X that Autrey was seen limping after the play and was later carted off. FOX College Football’s X account also posted a video of Audrey stretching on the sidelines before being carted away. “The officiating crew had an unexpected substitution tonight,” the X post read.
But the strange part was not simply that Autrey was gone. It was who had to take his place.
Autrey’s injury left the crew without its white hat, the official responsible for leading the group and handling the game’s primary announcements. Rules analyst Mike Pereira noted on the FOX broadcast that there was no separate backup referee waiting to step in. The game would have to continue with the existing crew adjusting on the fly. The field microphone also stopped working, leaving Pereira to announce a couple of calls from the booth so viewers could follow what was happening.
In FBS football, the center judge is designated to become the acting referee if the referee is unable to continue. That is exactly what happened in Lawrence: Ron Turner, who had been working as the center judge, moved into the referee role for the rest of the game. The official Kansas game record lists Turner as the center judge on Autrey’s crew.
The distinction matters because Turner was not brought in from the sideline as an emergency replacement. He was already one of the officials working the game. Once he moved into the white-hat role, the crew had to redistribute the responsibilities that normally belonged to its full officiating group rather than simply inserting another referee into Autrey’s spot.
That made Turner’s background particularly useful. Pereira pointed out that Turner had previously worked as a referee in the SWAC, giving him experience with the responsibilities he suddenly had to assume.
“The umpire, Ron Turner, was a referee in the SWAC,” Pereira said, according to Griffin McVeigh of On3. “And so, they likely designated him as the one official to fill in if, in fact, this happened.”
The official game record, however, lists Turner as the center judge rather than the umpire. Pereira’s larger point was that Turner had the referee experience needed to step into the role when Autrey could not continue.
Turner’s move also explains why the lack of a separate alternate mattered. An alternate official would have allowed the crew to fill the vacancy created when Turner moved into the referee position. Without one, the existing officials had to absorb the change themselves. Football officiating references note that alternate officials are generally used in postseason settings, while regular-season crews typically continue with fewer officials when one leaves the game.
That unusual reshuffling happened while the Border War itself kept moving. Autrey left the field on a cart in the first half, but the game did not stop for the officiating change. Turner handled the referee’s duties for the remainder of the night as Missouri eventually beat Kansas 38-21.
The timing made the sequence even stranger. The injury came on a play that had already produced one of the game’s biggest swings: Kansas turned a 27-yard Missouri field-goal attempt into an 88-yard touchdown, and Missouri answered on its next possession with Jamal Roberts’ 64-yard touchdown run. The teams went into halftime tied 14-14 before Missouri pulled away in the second half.
For a game that already had blocked kicks, turnovers and a rivalry backdrop, the officiating crew had its own set of problem to solve.