The college football All-Star game will look a little different this year: for the first time in history, the Hula Bowl will be officiated by an all-female crew.
The Hula Bowl is forging a landmark in officiating when the crew of all women take to the field for the 2023 contest.
Amanda Sauer will lead the crew of seven women, plus one alternate in the game first of the 2023 college all-star invitational games. It is one of five invitational games in total: the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, the East-West Shrine Bowl, the Senior Bowl, and the Legacy Bowl.
Sauer is a center judge with referee experience in the Big Ten; she worked in the USFL in 2022, and officiated a playoff game in the league.
The National Football League assigns the officials that work these invitational games from their development pool of college officials. The games are used as extra “grass time” to evaluate select officials in the development program, which is the exclusive conduit to officiating in the NFL.
The NFL's Mackie Development Program has as many as 40 officials each year; referees from the program get extra training from the NFL and will work in NFL training camps during the summer months. The program was renamed last year in honor of the late Wayne Mackie, who spearheaded development initiatives as a former NFL official and executive.
The full list of referees is as followed: Amanda Sauer, Sarah Fleming, Cat Conti, Henrietta Powell, Nicole Rudolph, Karina Tovar, Krystle Apellaniz and Monique Washington (alternate).
The Hula Bowl kicked off at noon eastern on Saturday afternoon in Orlando, FL; it has been temporarily relocated from its original home in Hawaii while Aloha Stadium undergoes rebuilding.
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