Big 12 officials head still answering questions on title game call

I've had one simple problem with the call --

What was the original call? Did the officials declare the game over, and then go back to overturn it? We were never clued it about this. But since replay was used, one is only to assume that was the call.

Now, since we are going to replay, the evidence must show without question that the call should be overturned.

In that play, we saw the ball clearly hit the ground with 1 second left. That is not even debatable. However, the clock is not required to stop exactly when the ball hits the ground. In those situations, the clock only stops when ..

A.) The referee signals the play is dead, by waving his arms

B.) The football hits an object, other than the field (i.e., person, cart, barrier), after it is incomplete

If you remember correctly, the officials stated that there was clear video evidence of the football hitting a rail. To this day, I have not seen one single replay that can show beyond a doubt that the football hit a railing, which would have ended the play.

In fact, as a I typed this, I went back and pulled a 1080p version of this play from YouTube. After watching this, there was no way in heck the ball hit a railing. A Husker fan was behind the railing, reaching over trying to grab the football as it went by him after it hit the ground. The ONLY thing the ball could have hit was some random guy in a grey suit. But since some camera guy was on his knees in front of him, there was no way you could see the ball hitting him either.

In summary, eff you B12. Goodbye.
Someone get this guy the Zapruder film!

 
It never gets old talking about this. Had the second been ticked off as colt spiked the ball then maybe the clock guy screwed up. Fact is the coaching staff called a play for colt to roll the pocket (I guess to get away from suh) and colt floated the ball out of bounds. Two boneheaded moves les miles style and they still got away with it. That's what really hurts. Our mistakes hurt us. The kick out of the bounds and horse-collar. Just like vatech....blown coverage. And ISU 8 turnovers (several of them just unreal)....

The season had its share of frustration and this was just the icing on the cake with a lot at stake.

 
It never gets old talking about this. Had the second been ticked off as colt spiked the ball then maybe the clock guy screwed up. Fact is the coaching staff called a play for colt to roll the pocket (I guess to get away from suh) and colt floated the ball out of bounds. Two boneheaded moves les miles style and they still got away with it. That's what really hurts. Our mistakes hurt us. The kick out of the bounds and horse-collar. Just like vatech....blown coverage. And ISU 8 turnovers (several of them just unreal)....

The season had its share of frustration and this was just the icing on the cake with a lot at stake.
Frankly this is probably the most instructive comment on the entire debacle. The fact of the matter is Mack Brown, Colt McCoy, Deloss Dodds, and the entire state of Texas got on their knees and begged: "Please let us lose the game. Don't make us win. We want to lose. Look, we're trying to lose. We're going out of our way to lose!" They play calling there can illustrate nothing else. Granted, Nebraska screwed the pooch enormously on that series, starting with Adi executing the worst kick of his career and more probably lifespan, and followed up with more idiocy from our secondary. Even still, the whole game was a heroic effort and Texas threw away their chance. The game clock ticked down, the clock ran out. The game was over.

But then.

We all know the parade of stupidity from here. The refs zapped some life back into the monster for no discernible reason. The call was in doubt but the game was over. Should have let things lie––as a ref it's always better to not call something that should have been and let the gameplay speak for itself than to insert your dumb a$$ as the star of the show. I absolutely see no semblance of a point in the article's response to putting seconds back on in the first half. What this amounts to is a kind of favoritism and selectivity over impartiality and constancy. In my perfect world every ref would be out of a job and replaced by robots. I don't want people who feel anything out there, or who get confused, or who have a 'human element.' The players need that. The refs needn't concern themselves with who's playing, what their record is, what they're playing for, what down it is, what distance, or anything.

If the policy in football is that sometimes seconds continue to tick after incomplete passes (i.e. the final play), then Texas, bloated, egotistical, oblivious program that they are, should realize this and account for it in game planning. In effect this means you don't call rollout passes when you're executing your two-minute offense. You don't lob the ball thirty feet in the air with four seconds on the clock. In short, you don't be a moron. But I suppose Texas owns everything else in the Big XII. Why not the ref's benefit of the doubt?

 
Hope that crooked has to explain this away the rest of his life ... and then some.



MOD Edit - there's no reason for language like that.

 
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What this amounts to is a kind of favoritism and selectivity over impartiality and constancy. In my perfect world every ref would be out of a job and replaced by robots. I don't want people who feel anything out there, or who get confused, or who have a 'human element.' The players need that. The refs needn't concern themselves with who's playing, what their record is, what they're playing for, what down it is, what distance, or anything.
I will argue against the "correctness" of this call until I'm blue in the face. But I don't think there was any favoritism or conspiracy. At least, I don't think we have direct evidence of that. I think they tried to make the right call, but failed. At the very least, they have failed to explain why it was the right call, which I think is just as frustrating. Many good points have been made in this thread. I would like to see them answer:

1. What was the initial call, i.e. what was the call that was being reviewed? Was the call upheld or reversed? If it was reversed, what was the indisputable evidence that allowed them to make their final ruling?

2. As far as I know, there is absolutely no precedent for this particular interpretation of the clock review rules, and on the contrary, there are numerous cases where the exact opposite interpretation was applied. Is this how the rule will be implemented going forward? How much should we expect this to vary from conference to conference?

3. What clock was used for the superimposed image? How much confidence do the officials have that this clock was accurate enough to make a judgement on a 1 second clock discrepancy? If they can't prove that the equipment that they use for replay is accurate and precise enough in this situation, then they shouldn't have even attempted to put time back on the clock, and they shouldn't try to do it again in the future.

If they can't answer these questions conclusively, it doesn't mean that they tried to screw Nebraska. It just means that they were presented with a difficult situation and made the incorrect decision.

 
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What this amounts to is a kind of favoritism and selectivity over impartiality and constancy. In my perfect world every ref would be out of a job and replaced by robots. I don't want people who feel anything out there, or who get confused, or who have a 'human element.' The players need that. The refs needn't concern themselves with who's playing, what their record is, what they're playing for, what down it is, what distance, or anything.
I will argue against the "correctness" of this call until I'm blue in the face. But I don't think there was any favoritism or conspiracy. At least, I don't think we have direct evidence of that. I think they tried to make the right call, but failed. At the very least, they have failed to explain why it was the right call, which I think is just as frustrating. Many good points have been made in this thread. I would like to see them answer:

1. What was the initial call, i.e. what was the call that was being reviewed? Was the call upheld or reversed? If it was reversed, what was the indisputable evidence that allowed them to make their final ruling?

2. As far as I know, there is absolutely no precedent for this particular interpretation of the clock review rules, and on the contrary, there are numerous cases where the exact opposite interpretation was applied. Is this how the rule will be implemented going forward? How much should we expect this to vary from conference to conference?

3. What clock was used for the superimposed image? How much confidence do the officials have that this clock was accurate enough to make a judgement on a 1 second clock discrepancy? If they can't prove that the equipment that they use for replay is accurate and precise enough in this situation, then they shouldn't have even attempted to put time back on the clock, and they shouldn't try to do it again in the future.

If they can't answer these questions conclusively, it doesn't mean that they tried to screw Nebraska. It just means that they were presented with a difficult situation and made the incorrect decision.
I agree for the most part and felt that way UNTIL all this conference realignment went down a few months ago. Now I've taken the tack of not believing ANYTHING a Big12 official says or that anything they do is not contrived to appease Texas.

 
As much as this time issue hurt us last year, I'm a firm believer in never basing an entire game on one moment or one occurrence.

If our offense had been able to score one touchdown, then the end of that game wouldn't have mattered. If they had been able to score one extra field goal, the end of that game wouldn't have mattered.

If we had stopped their lone touchdown or not had a pass interference call, the end of the game wouldn't have mattered.

Does it suck? Yes. But, we had chances and opportunities to win that game long before the final second, and we didn't do it. They did.

 
As much as this time issue hurt us last year, I'm a firm believer in never basing an entire game on one moment or one occurrence.

If our offense had been able to score one touchdown, then the end of that game wouldn't have mattered. If they had been able to score one extra field goal, the end of that game wouldn't have mattered.

If we had stopped their lone touchdown or not had a pass interference call, the end of the game wouldn't have mattered.

Does it suck? Yes. But, we had chances and opportunities to win that game long before the final second, and we didn't do it. They did.
That's a good point. I'll also mention that we didn't run the play clock all the way down once in FG range. We left 8-12 seconds instead of using up the clock a couple of times. That would have made a big difference.

 
I've had one simple problem with the call --

What was the original call? Did the officials declare the game over, and then go back to overturn it? We were never clued it about this. But since replay was used, one is only to assume that was the call.

Now, since we are going to replay, the evidence must show without question that the call should be overturned.

In that play, we saw the ball clearly hit the ground with 1 second left. That is not even debatable. However, the clock is not required to stop exactly when the ball hits the ground. In those situations, the clock only stops when ..

A.) The referee signals the play is dead, by waving his arms

B.) The football hits an object, other than the field (i.e., person, cart, barrier), after it is incomplete

If you remember correctly, the officials stated that there was clear video evidence of the football hitting a rail. To this day, I have not seen one single replay that can show beyond a doubt that the football hit a railing, which would have ended the play.

In fact, as a I typed this, I went back and pulled a 1080p version of this play from YouTube. After watching this, there was no way in heck the ball hit a railing. A Husker fan was behind the railing, reaching over trying to grab the football as it went by him after it hit the ground. The ONLY thing the ball could have hit was some random guy in a grey suit. But since some camera guy was on his knees in front of him, there was no way you could see the ball hitting him either.

In summary, eff you B12. Goodbye.
A poster on ShaggyBevo (in quite colorful words) linked to a video and said rouphly "look at the *** bottom corner of the *** video, you ****. He is waving his ***** arms, and the ****** game clock should have ***** stopped. The **** ref got the **** call right. Stop your *******, you **** corn aggie"

I didn't check the video out, but if true the call on the field was to stop the clock and solid evidence was needed to overturn it. The officiating crew did a piss poor job of explaining what the call on the field was and what was going on.

 
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A poster on ShaggyBevo (in quite colorful words) linked to a video and said rouphly "look at the *** bottom corner of the *** video, you ****. He is waving his ***** arms, and the ****** game clock should have ***** stopped. The **** ref got the **** call right. Stop your *******, you **** corn aggie"

I didn't check the video out, but if true the call on the field was to stop the clock and solid evidence was needed to overturn it. The officiating crew did a piss poor job of explaining what the call on the field was and what was going on.
If that's the case, then all of my arguments above justify the final ruling (i.e. not being able to overturn the call). However, if the call is that easily explained, then why haven't they just come out and said this? The following comment seems to support that, though I wish he would be more explicit. It shouldn't be so hard to come out and say "The ruling on the field was X and video review did/did not confirm that."

Were you sure when you went to bed that night the correct call had been made?
“On that one. Because we were all looking at the clock … because time is such an important factor, you’re very conscious of it. So we were actually looking at the clock as it developed. We were counting it down. Four ... three ... two ... So we had a sense there was time left. So we knew right away that we had a real potential problem, that we needed to stop the game right away and page the officials to just be sure so that we could end up taking a look at it to be sure we got it right.”
 
Had that extra time ran off while playing in Lincoln I might be more understandable but by accounts the timekeeper was supposed to be impartial at a neutral site. So again I still question....how many other reviews have we seen where the judgement of someone other than the referee is being questioned? Think about it. Every call I can think of that is being reviewed, it is the referee's judgement that is being reviewed. I've not heard of a timeclock manager being reviewed.

It is possible the referee lost track of the time which is absolutely inexcusable at that stage in the game. If that is the case there should've been some form of repercussion...remember the onside kick OU/Oregon game? The replay official was suspended. The one thing the referee should have been paying attention to the most on that play was the clock and location of the ball. Ball hit something...look straight at your watch while starting to wave those arms. It baffles the mind. Just like the oregon OU game...I didn't have a side....just wanted the right call made. We needed proper explanation of this call to be satisfied. We never got it so many of us are still bothered by it.

 
Had that extra time ran off while playing in Lincoln I might be more understandable but by accounts the timekeeper was supposed to be impartial at a neutral site. So again I still question....how many other reviews have we seen where the judgement of someone other than the referee is being questioned? Think about it. Every call I can think of that is being reviewed, it is the referee's judgement that is being reviewed. I've not heard of a timeclock manager being reviewed.

It is possible the referee lost track of the time which is absolutely inexcusable at that stage in the game. If that is the case there should've been some form of repercussion...remember the onside kick OU/Oregon game? The replay official was suspended. The one thing the referee should have been paying attention to the most on that play was the clock and location of the ball. Ball hit something...look straight at your watch while starting to wave those arms. It baffles the mind. Just like the oregon OU game...I didn't have a side....just wanted the right call made. We needed proper explanation of this call to be satisfied. We never got it so many of us are still bothered by it.
the person who lost track of time at the end of the game was colt mccoy - he deserved to lose...however all the texas pole smoker refs decided to save his a$$

 
I'm still waiting for the referees to add time onto the clock from all of the previous incomplete passes that Colt threw in the 2nd half.

 
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