IRVING, Texas – Barring a last-minute and unforeseen agreement between the league and the officials, the Cowboys’ season opener against the New York Giants will feature replacement officials, led by referee Jim Core.

The most interesting fact from the league’s selection of Core is that he will not be working the Cowboys-Giants game with the crew that accompanied him in three preseason contests. Core worked three preseason games and his crew had 39 accepted penalties for 333 yards.

He will be joined by umpire Bob Shoulders, head linesman Greg Maxwell, line judge Joshua Thurow, field judge Thaddious Foster, side judge Brian Stropolo and back judge Larry Babcock. They worked the final week of the preseason with Jim Winterberg in calling the Carolina-Pittsburgh game.

Is Jason Garrett concerned about the replacement officials?

“Really not at all,” Garrett said. “The NFL does a great job of putting a great product out there for us and we’re just going to play.
It’s our job to play and coach and the officials are going to be fine.
I think they did a good job in the preseason and we’re just excited to do our part on Wednesday night.”

So does that mean he will agree with every call?

“I think we’ll probably have a similar relationship that we have with the regular officials,” Garrett joked.

The Winterberg crew had 16 accepted penalties for 136 yards in the Carolina-Pittsburgh game. Overall the crew threw 18 flags, including six special teams’ penalties.

Core is the activities director at Sawtooth Middle School in Meridian, Idaho, according to this story. He has called games in the Frontier League as well as arenafootball2.

Here is the breakdown of penalties from Core’s last game between Tampa Bay and Washington:

Ineligible man downfield – 1
Offensive holding – 3
False start – 5
Defensive pass interference – 2

Here is the breakdown of penalties from the rest of his crew that worked the Pittsburgh-Carolina game:

Roughing the passer – 1
Illegal formation – 1
Offensive holding – 4
False start – 2
Illegal block above the waist – 3
Offside – 1
Personal foul – 1
Defensive pass interference – 2
Face mask – 1
Delay of game – 2