Should've been 50 on them. Refs can call MORE penalties on team A, but call more timely penalties against B, giving team A a huge advantage. You think refs don't try to give the illusion of fairness? What's more damaging, a holding call that takes away a TD, or a false start? You have to look at the quality of the penalties.
Remember the abortion of a game we played against UT back in 2003? That was one of the ugliest games I ever saw. The refs helped UT BIG TIME on their only TD scoring drive by calling penalties against us that didn't exist. Also, remember the 15 harder on Winslow for taking his helmet off, when it had been knocked off, and he was simply trying to get it back on right? Guess what happened to that crew.... They were awarded the SEC championship game that year. Why? They got the SEC their biggest OOC win of the year. Maybe for a few years.
Conference officials have it down to a science. They will NEVER call 20 penalties against the OOC team and none on their own. That would be too obvious. They need to make it look like it was a fairly called game. Those numbers, 12 and 13, speak to that. Seems to me they were trying to get the number close so they could say, "Hey, just look at the final penalty numbers! We called an even game!" Except some penalties are more costly than others, and those NOT CALLED often give a team a really big advantage.
12 Penalties on them and 13 against UM - stop it