Super Bowl champion head coach Tony Dungy expressed his frustration with inconsistent pass interference penalties during Thanksgiving Day’s slate of NFL games.

There were plenty of questionable calls during each of the three games – as there have been over the course of the entire 2025 season. He wrote on social media that the discrepancies have made it appear that NFL officials do not know what pass interference is.

“When you watch NFL football all day long you just come to the conclusion our officials don’t know what pass interference is,” he wrote on X. “We tried making it reviewable a couple of years ago and that didn’t help. But these are monster penalties that are not called consistently at all.”

Dungy explained his take further when one X user wrote back that his comments were “cheap seats kind of gripes.”

“I had a good day watching football. I just think pass interference is called very inconsistently. And they are sometimes 40 yard penalties. Doesn’t make it a cheap seat gripe. It’s just a statement of fact made from watching 3 games with (DBs) and WRs making contact on 40-50 passes. Anybody who watched the games would say the same thing.”

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NFL officials have sparked debates across social media over pass interference calls, which have also reached the broadcast booth as Tony Romo and Cris Collinsworth were among those critical of them this year.

Former NFL head coach Jon Gruden said last December that he would want to see the league adopt college football’s rules on pass interference penalties.

“I would make it the college rule, honestly, because some of these pass interference calls are impacting the game, just one play there,” Gruden said at the time on the “Pardon My Take” podcast.

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He also suggested the call was too subjective and that the penalty flag should only be thrown if it is clear and obvious.

Fox News’ Chantz Martin contributed to this report.

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Former NFL star Shawne Merriman is building his mixed martial arts company to stand out from the rest.

Lights Out Xtreme Fighting introduced game-changing AI technology for advertisers a few months ago and will provide more data for fans and MMA officials alike with glove technology that will be introduced with its next fight card. All of that on top of Lights Out Sports that Merriman created to highlight his promotion as well as a variety of different sports.

Merriman said while he sees other companies trying to compete with UFC and burning through cash in their attempts, Lights Out Xtreme Fighting is doing something completely different.

“We never looked to compete. We’re creating. We don’t want to compete with the UFC.We don’t care,” he told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “We know there’s other promotions and other organizations out there trying to compete with the UFC.

“In my opinion, I don’t think there will be anybody bigger than the UFC and there’s a lot of promotions that are just trying to spend their way to the top with money. Just outspend their way and not (having success). We are (successful) because we’ve been more efficient and we are an incubator. We’re not trying to compete with anybody. We’re a hub for this technology, this data and these great fights, and for guys to go into the UFC when they become champions for Lights Out Xtreme Fighting. That’s where we are.”

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Merriman said he wants the company to focus on building and implementing new technology to make them stand out from the rest.

“We want to change the game. We don’t want to keep going down the track and trying to be like everybody else. We don’t even compete with the UFC because honestly, truthfully, we don’t care,” he said.

Lights Out 29 will take place on Dec. 6 in Long Beach, California, at Thunder Studios. Jake Babian, Sam Fournier, Jordan Azurdia, Dalton Hambrock and Corvan Allen are expected to be in action.

“This growth that we’ve had over the past year has been unprecedented,” Merriman told Fox News Digital. “I don’t think anything like this has happened ever in combat sports. We’ve sent five fighters to the UFC in the last two months. We love that, man.

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“We love to be able to let those guys go and follow that platform. Just the notoriety we’ve gotten over this past year, we want to be considered one of the best in this business and we’re on our way.”

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Red Sanders, the legendary UCLA football coach, once said the rivalry with USC wasn’t life or death, it was more important than that.

Now, some 70 years later, almost half the Bruins roster needed a primer on what it means to play the Trojans.

“We have so many transfers and things,” interim coach Tim Skipper said, “so I wanted to make sure everybody knew how significant this game was.”

That could make Ciaran Dooley, the team’s creative content producer, a rivalry hero rivaling John Barnes, Anthony Barr and Dorian Thompson-Robinson. Dooley produced a video that tried to pack the essence of a nearly century-old rivalry into about five minutes.

Putting aside any worries about where college sports are headed when one needs to explain anything about his biggest rival, the video had its intended effect, sparking cheers nearly a week before kickoff.

Starting with a minutelong hype reel narrated by Barr, the video explained some of the rivalry basics, such as both teams wearing their home uniforms and the winner getting to take possession of the 295-pound Victory Bell before painting it in their primary school color — preferably blue.

“A lot of it was like clips I’ve already seen being from L.A. and around the game,” freshman linebacker Scott Taylor said, “but a lot of the guys who haven’t been here don’t understand how big a deal this is to L.A. and how special this win can be.”

Rivalry lexicon such as “It’s always 8:47 in Westwood” — a reference to the Bruins’ 13-9 upset of No. 2 USC in 2006 — and “Eight more years!” — a chant that broke out at the Rose Bowl in 1998 at the end of the Bruins’ eighth consecutive victory over the Trojans — might need some explaining to a roster that includes 57 newcomers, 52 transfers and 42 players from out of state.

“I made this video to show what the rivalry is really about — the history, the passion, the bragging rights,” Dooley told The Times. “I know everyone on the team already knows what it is, but if there’s anything that I can do to motivate the guys just that much more for the game, I’m going to do it every time.”

Linebacker Isaiah Chisom, a transfer from Oregon State, said the coaching staff also brought in several former players to explain the significance of the rivalry before the Bruins (3-8 overall, 3-5 Big Ten) face the No. 17 Trojans (8-3, 6-2) on Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum. Veteran offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio and defensive back Cole Martin also talked about what the rivalry meant to them.

“I think they’ve done a pretty good job at kind of bringing everybody together,” Chisom said, “so we all know how important this game is.”

Chisom didn’t need a refresher, having grown up in Southern California and played for Bishop Allemany High and Chaminade College Prep. He said he’s already attended a rivalry game and learned about the Bruins’ hatred for the Trojans from Chaminade assistant coach Reggie Carter, a former Bruins linebacker.

“He didn’t like anybody wearing any red,” Chisom said of Carter. “It’s been something I’ve been told for a long time.”

Skipper said he grew up watching the rivalry no matter where he lived — his father, Jim, was a coaching lifer who moved from one city to another and his older brother, Kelly, was DeShaun Foster’s running backs coach at UCLA.

“It’s awesome to finally be part of this thing,” Tim Skipper said. “You watch it so much, I’ve never been to one of these games, and to be able to work it and coach it is going to be awesome.”

Signs of rivalry week have greeted anyone who walked past the boarded-up John Wooden and bear statues on campus, though it’s been a little quieter than the Bruins would have preferred. That’s because they haven’t been able to ring the Victory Bell that’s residing across town after USC won last year’s game, 19-13, at the Rose Bowl.

“We want to get it back, we want to ring it after the game,” DiGiorgio said. “The [USC] guys, they planted flags on our field last year. I don’t know if we’re going to reciprocate that energy because I don’t know if that’s going to start anything, but we’re definitely looking forward to getting that bell back.”

The Bruins have won their last two trips to the Coliseum, giving DiGiorgio motivation to make it three in a row and end his college career 3-2 against the Trojans. There was a consensus at the team meeting Sunday that a victory over USC would make up for all the frustrations the team has endured during a season in which Foster was fired after only three games.

UCLA offensive lineman Garrett DiGiorgio (72) is confident a video the Bruins’ staff produced helped his teammates understand the importance of winning the USC rivalry game.

(John McCoy / Associated Press)

“Beating ‘SC would undo every wrong that has happened this season — that and the Penn State win [over the then-No. 7 Nittany Lions],” Chisom said. “I don’t think we could ask for anything more.”

Even those making their rivalry debut will know what they’re getting into thanks to the handiwork of a content creator whose video might help produce an upset.

“I believe that it enlightened, lit a fire under the guys,” DiGiorgio said, “to be a little excited for this week.”