Seems like the ACC is just as embarrassed of the officials as we are sick of them if it has come to this. Discuss.
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Seems like the ACC is just as embarrassed of the officials as we are sick of them if it has come to this. Discuss.
Its an ESPN link...
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This is what I called yesterday, including the sorry, but the score is in the books despite we know that Duke won.
Yepper, I told my wife the guys knee was down and one or two of the Miami's players where out on the field during the run back. Play over, game over, Dook wins. Don't like either of them, but Dook got robbed.
Duke fans need not worry... It will be basketball season soon enough, at which point the officials will be back on their side.
Yup. Got no sympathy for Duke, no matter what happened to them.
I'm just thankful there is a glimmer of hope...Praying for Beamer to have 5 games left.
This is awesome!
Miami's official athletic department Twitter response is ridiculous. Either don't say anything or try to be classy, but it's Miami so we know that's not happening. A note to Miami, stuff like that is why everyone hates you. We aren't jealous, we're just annoyed.
You gotta admit, that stick's got Swagger.
I hate Miami as much as the next guy, but I have to admit that I legit laughed when I saw the tweet.
Likely costing Duke a shot at the coastal and a chance to get their ass kicked by Clemson, still it is bs. I hate it when any game is decided by the refs or umps instead of the players
Just to play devil's advocate, these guys got suspended for missing two blocks in the back on an eight lateral return and for missing that the guy's knee was down on replay. Is there an angle that shows the knee definitely down? And yes, I've seen the still image posted by Duke. That was from a photographer in the end zone and not available to the replay official. Replay can only work with the lines of sight the TV cameras provide them.
I don't think there was any malice involved in this play on behalf of the refs. I just think they were overwhelmed by one of the craziest plays in college football history.
I think the officials from our game deserve a suspension more than these guys do.
On my first and only view of the replay, didn't see it live, I did see the block in the back on the 16 yard line and the knee down. How they missed it with multiple replay's I don't know. Even if the flag was intended for a block that was from the side, there was a second.
You cannot call a penalty that wasn't originally called based on replay. If they missed it live, it was simply missed. No going back.
Also consider, when you watched the replay, I assume you knew you were about to watch a replay of an eight lateral kick return for a touchdown. The refs got it live, from field level. That ball moved around so much I'm not surprised at all they missed some calls.
Did they get it wrong? Yes. Was it so egrigious they should be suspended from their jobs? No. The forward progress call on Travon's fumble was worse than anything that happened on that return.
I mostly agree, but I thought the replay pretty clearly showed his knee down for that one lateral.
Even assuming the knee down is questionable, if I'm the replay official, and see the clear block in the back that didn't get called that would have nullified the play, and have an opportunity to right the game by saying the knee was down, I'm going with the knee was down.
Is that wrong? Meh. Seen the on-field refs and the replay refs apply the rules haphazardly before, so in the grand scheme of things, I'm going with you make sure the ultimate result of the play is right.
The only problem with that is, per the ACC release, had there been a block in the back, Miami was due an untimed down once the penalty yardage was walked off. If the replay official decided to take matters into his own hands and call the knee down because he saw two missed blocks in the back, Miami loses their fair shot at a Hail Mary.
Ultimately, yes, the knee was down, so it's kind of moot. But the replay official calling that based on missed calls observed on replay rather than definitive video showing the knee down just screws over Miami instead of Duke.
Also, can't help but think if Duke just kicked the damn ball out of the endzone and played prevent defense it wouldn't have happened in the first place, but that's beside the point.
All else aside, yeah, I'm not a fan of the squib kick. It must be statistically advantageous in those situations, but I hate it.
Maybe I missed it, but I was watching the whole thing live and I didn't see any contemporaneous replay angle where it was even remotely clear that his knee was down. Much as didn't I see one that could overrule the very close goal-line call that gave Duke the lead...
Did the refs miss a clear block in the back early in the return? Yep. But did refs also miss a clear hold on Duke's 2 pt conversion in the 4OT vs VT? Yep. Do refs swallow the whistle on virtually every hail mary pass? Yep.
The ACC acting now on this one play is a joke.
Mistakes get made on the field all the time and video is sometimes not conclusive. But I think they were suspended because ultimately, they used replay to get it wrong. They conferred and called a penalty. Then they went to replay and 8-9 minutes later, articulated a decision inconsistent with the rules.
Let's be honest. The refs for our game did an awful job too. That forward progress call that should have been 6 for BC was complete crap.
I didn't see the whole game, but on dukes last drive where they scored the go ahead td, there were three PI calls against Miami, two of which were pretty questionable. They also stopped the clock with like 6 seconds left to add time on because they didn't stop it for the first down, which gave duke a de facto time out to get their play called and everyone set up. So duke got screwed on the last play, but Miami also had some gripes about officiating
Miami had more than a few gripes about the officiating. The officiating was terrible overall, not just on the last play.
Was this the same crew that had the phantom PI call on VT against Pitt?
We had Ron Cherry and company for the Pitt game.
The Miami/Duke crew was led by referee Jerry Magallanes. According to Hokiesports.com, he has not been at a VT game this year. However, that crew (well, half of it, as I'm sure there's always some shuffling year to year) was at the VT/UVA game last year.
Exactly. Not to mention, I don't think Sirk crossed the goal line on the TD.
Watching the replay I could see in slow motion on the first take that the guys knee was down before the ball left his hand.
Not what I saw...
Here's a question: does anyone know/did anyone see any alternate video angles of any parts of the play? I feel like ESPN just kept re-running the same angle over and over again. Normally on replay we see several angles. Of course, there were a lot of things to look at in this instance, not just one player, but I feel like I should have seen more angles (end zone camera, opposite sideline, etc). We've all seen the stills from after the game, but what about the actual video that the replay officials were looking at? That's what matters so much. I didn't see anything on the main angle that would invalidate the play, despite other evidence to the contrary.
See my post above. I was watching live and I seem to recall another one from the end zone at field level, but the view of either the knee or the ball was blocked.
Another question I have is...if you ONLY saw this picture with no context and didn't know what happened before and after the pic was taken, would you say the runner didn't possess the ball and it was a fumble or would you say the runner had clear possession and he was down?
My point is was the ball entirely in his possession when the knee was down? In other words, if it was being looked at as a fumble -- would he have been ruled down or would replay have said he didn't have possession of the ball? What if Duke had picked up the ball there and returned it for a touchdown? Would they say he was down even though he no longer had clear possession when the knee touched the ground?
People are looking at this as though it was a forward pass, but it wasn't. A lateral is essentially an intentional fumble, not a forward pass. If he didn't still have clear possession of the ball when his knee, (and I don't believe he did) then it should be ruled a fumble, not "down", and thus the play was still alive because the fumble went backwards.
And beyond that, it was not ruled down on the field of play, so it would have to be "incontrovertible visual evidence" that he did maintain possession in order for replay to overrule the call.
IMO, the ACC is wrong...they have now compounded the issue.
Nevermind was wrong about rule.
Without context...assuming it's a run, knee's down and the ball's in the player's hand, so the play should be over here. There's no "completion" of the play that has to be done on a run.
Or, what if this was a play where the receiver made a one handed catch and ran four or five steps while holding the ball with one hand before getting tackled?
Either way, it looks like he has a pretty decent grip on the ball.
If that was just a play in the middle of the game and Duke had recovered the ball and scored - NOBODY would be saying he was down.
But regardless, it was not called down on the field. And there is no way that picture ""incontrovertible visual evidence" that he had clear possession at the moment his knee hit the ground.
But that one single picture right there wouldn't be looked at without context in replay. They use video. They can speed up, slow down, run back, run forward. Replay is all about context.
True, but have you seen a good replay angle? I haven't. The only one I've seen with any view of the ball and knee is from above - totally inconclusive. And that picture is the one now being used by folks to say they missed the call and Duke should be awarded the game.
I asked a friend of mine today - who has a 2 yr old and was unaware of the game or the controversy so he had no contextual bias - whether the runner in the picture is down or whether he doesn't have possession of the ball and it's a fumble. He basically said you can't tell from the picture...maybe he has possession; maybe he doesn't.
Pretty sure the question is control, not possession. The only way the runner isn't down is if the referee determined he wasn't trying to pitch it to someone else, that his release of the ball was unintentional. Otherwise, if the ball isn't completely out of his hand when the knee touches, the runner is down.
The thing is that it isn't Basketball where all you're looking at is if the player is touching the ball. You can't take a still image and determine control, you can only determine body position. So a series of images before and after this one would need to be used to determine if the player still had possession of the ball when his knee hit the ground, because that is not the debatable. Likely, the officials believed he started to lose possession before his knee hit and moved on. Or they were just really bad. Both can be true as well.
What gets me is, the officials were favoring Duke almost the entire game. Miami committed a ridiculous number of fouls, but a significant number of them were borderline or just bad calls, such as both PI penalties on the drive that gave Duke the lead with 6 seconds to go in the first place. If it wasn't for those bad calls, they wouldn't have even been in position to blow some calls on that final play to begin with.
Part of me is glad that Miami pulled that off, and that the refs blew it. Miami played better for most of that game, until they went conservative late with a 12 point lead, and the refs had just about handed the game to Duke there at the end.
So what this means is that they will be reinstated right before we play UNC and will be assigned to work our game.
DANNY COALE CAUGHT THAT BALL
I KNOW
Seems to me it's the review officials that blew this one. Walton was down, AND there were some questionable blocks.
The officials on the field made a call, and it's not like it was easy to parse all that activity on the field in real time.
That said, I don't really know what angles they had in the review booth.
Still, Duke is justified in being upset.
#goacc
If these officials get suspended for this, then a bunch of AAC officials should've gotten fired for the majority of our games against ECU.