They knew good and well that the refs would measure but they didn’t want the 7-10 seconds to run off while the referee decided to measure.
It’s the passive inattention to detail that he lost our team so many games. This is part of it. Not paying attention to the coach getting his cake and eating it too. And then calling the next play when the referee screwed up the clock management. But hey, it doesn’t matter, BYU won.
I’d like to read the rules about use of timeouts.