Still have a chance to do the right thing.
It turned out to be an exciting week 1 of college football, with thrillers from Ole Miss and Louisville, as well as last night’s game between SMU and Florida State, to round out the weekend. But the game that everybody is still talking about is the matchup between the Michigan Wolverines and the Western Michigan Broncos, thanks to a controversial ending that left the football fans outraged.
The Broncos, who compete in the Mid-American Conference, came into the game as 28 point underdogs. But they managed to give the #16-ranked Wolverines all they could handle in Ann Arbor.
The Broncos kicked a field goal with just 1:15 left on the clock to make the score 12 to 7, meaning Michigan needed to drive down the field to score in just over a minute if they wanted to avoid what would have been considered one of the biggest upsets in the history of college football.
With no timeouts left and only 9 seconds on the clock, Michigan was forced to throw a Hail Mary, which star quarterback Bryce Underwood overthrew, with the ball falling to the ground outside the back of the end zone after the clock hit triple zeros.
Western Michigan took the field to celebrate, but officials quickly announced that the play was under review. After a couple of minutes, the referee announced that there was actually one second left on the clock, meaning Michigan would have time for one final Hail Mary. And…well, we all know what happened next. This time, Underwood threw to the front of the end zone, Michigan scored a touchdown, and the Wolverines scored a walkoff 13-12 win as time expired (again), robbing us of one of the all-time great upsets in college football history.
After the absurd ending, the broadcast showed what was thought to be the official clock to confirm that time had expired after the first Hail Mary, and therefore Western Michigan should have won the game. But the Big Ten issued a statement claiming that, basically, there was another clock the officials used that showed one second left on the clock when the Broncos defender first touched the ball:
“Following video review, it was determined Western Michigan’s #18 started his jump from an established out-of-bounds position (left foot) and made contact with the ball with one second remaining on the clock. As shown in the provided video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling.
Eighty-five minutes prior to the game, all broadcast cameras used for the replay system, including the camera on the game clock, are synced using a strobe system to ensure all cameras are aligned.
Per NCAA Football rule 4-2-3-a, ‘A ball not in player control, other than a kick that scores a field goal, is out of bounds when it touches the ground, a player, a game official or anything else that is out-of-bound [sic], or that is on or outside a boundary line,’ and thus the clock is stopped.”
Well at first, Western Michigan and the MAC seemed to accept the explanation, even if begrudgingly. But today, the conference has apparently changed its mind, and is asking the NCAA to recognize the Broncos as the winner of the game.
In a statement, the MAC says that the Big Ten officiating crew should have been required to go by the game clock that was displayed on the screen, not whatever super secret clock they used to add the extra second onto the game:
“After further study and investigation, it is now evident that replay protocol was not properly followed in determining whether time remained on the game clock at the conclusion of the Western Michigan vs. Michigan football game.
The established replay protocol requires that the game clock displayed on the program feed be used in determining whether time remained. Instead, the Big Ten Conference replay crew relied upon the clock feed embedded within its replay system. As a result, one second was placed back on the game clock and an additional play was awarded.”
As the MAC points out, the error wasn’t a simple judgment call: It was an improper application of the rules, and thus should be overturned.
“This was not a judgment regarding the proper amount of time to place on the clock. It was an error in the application of the established replay protocol governing this specific end-of-game timing situation. Had the protocol been properly followed and the program-feed clock been used, no additional play would have been awarded, and Western Michigan would have won the game, 12-7.”
And they’re asking both the NCAA and the College Football Playoff committee to recognize them as the winners of the game:
“As a result, the Mid-American Conference has submitted formal appeals to the NCAA FBS Oversight Committee and the College Football Playoff. The MAC is requesting that those bodies recognize Western Michigan as the actual winner of the game for purposes of their respective rankings, evaluations and selection deliberations, and take such other corrective action as may be within their authority.”
It’s obviously a longshot at this point, but it seems that some AP voters already recognize them as the winner: After being ranked #16 coming into the game, Michigan dropped out of the ranking entirely despite the win.
Regardless of how the MAC’s appeal goes, seems like people are already declaring Western Michigan the winner.
