It was a busy day for Ken Niumatalolo on Saturday.
First, Niumatalolo’s San Jose State Spartans won their sixth game of the season, coming from behind in the fourth quarter to beat the Oregon State Beavers 24-13 on the road.
Then following the game, Niumatalolo was seen berating game officials — despite the team’s victory — and was subsequently reprimanded Sunday by the Mountain West Conference “in response to his public criticism of game officials.”
The Spartans stand at 6-3 with three games remaining in the regular season. They’re doing so in Niumatalolo’s first season as head coach following Brent Brennan’s departure to become head coach at Arizona.
For Niumatalolo, it is a return to familiarity after a postseason drought of a few years. From 2007-2019 while head coach at Navy, Niumatalolo went bowling 11 times but made zero bowl appearances in his final three seasons before getting fired at the end of the 2022 season.
In 2023, Niumatalolo joined UCLA’s coaching staff as “director of leadership” and then was named tight ends coach in January of this year before taking the San Jose State head coaching job a few weeks later.
Saturday, the Spartans trailed 13-10 with just over 11 minutes remaining when San Jose State’s DJ Harvey returned an interception for a touchdown to give the Spartans a 17-13 lead.
San Jose State shut the door on the Beavers defensively on the following possession and then scored a touchdown to go up 11 with 6:22 remaining, and Oregon State couldn’t mount a comeback.
Following the game, however, Niumatalolo was shown going out of his way to yell at the field judge. The field judge appeared to engage with Niumatalolo for a moment and then began jogging off the field.
Niumatalolo followed for a moment and then stopped as the field judge continued jogging off.
That scene came on a day in which two Big 12 Conference head coaches — Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire and Utah’s Kyle Whittingham (along with Utah athletic director Mark Harlan) — publicly criticized game officials.
In college football, each conference employs their own game officials.