This story is ridiculous. First, what did the ACC tell us the officials did wrong? They missed a block in the back during the last play. Even if that is true, officials miss holding calls and other offenses during a lot of final plays and no one makes a big deal of it. The ACC claims Walton was down. The replay official has to see indisputable video evidence to overturn the call on the field that was a TD. The replay official is limited only to looking at the TV feed to make this determination. The TV camera angle is toward Walton's back and no way you can tell whether the knee was down when he still had the ball from the TV feed. The replay can not search the internet or any other source for making the determination. We do see an official looking directly at Walton, in front of him with full view of the knee and the ball, and he did not call him down as the play developed in live action. So there was no indisputable, visual evidence that Walton was down to reverse the call. Call stands was the correct call based from the feed, the only source of information a replay official is permitted to consider. It is ENTIRELY inappropriate for a league commissioner to question that determination by the replay official and sets a dangerous precedent.
What else did the ACC say the officials did wrong? Oh yeah, they "miscommunicated" the flag for block in the back. This bugged me yesterday and did not sit right with me and I did not know why. I saw no flag on the replay and the crowd didn't act like one had been thrown during the play but the camera angle did not show the trailing officials. But the two officials closest to the ball did not throw a flag during the play. So tonight, I went back to see what happened and I turned up the volume on the replay on ESPN3. At the 3:38.00 mark, Elder crosses the goal line. Duke is stunned. The announcers are stunned. At 3:38.28 mark, the color analyst says "for once there is no flag on the play" an obvious reference to the twenty three penalties called on Miami during the game. So 28 seconds after the TD was over, the color analyst says there was NO FLAG on the field. At 3:38.32 he says, a flag just came down. The referee then announces there was a block in the back penalty and the play is under video review.
Once the referees determine Miami had pulled off the miracle TD, and Miami has won the game, 32 seconds after the fact, a "flag" is thrown on the field. Replay looks at Walton. Not indisputable he didn't pitch before down. Replay looks at all laterals, all were backwards. But replay never sees a flag thrown during the play. Replay looks at the location of this mysterious flag, and looks at the block. It appears not to be a block in the back. Replay notices no number is identified for the offending player. It calls down to the crew and asks for clarification. Hey guys, when did you throw the flag? Are you sure of the call because it doesn't look like a block in the back on the video. The crew huddles and admits they never threw a flag for a block in the back or if they did, they were wrong. They pick up the flag as they are aware at this point the video is clear that they did not make the call while the play occurred or they didn't make the right call or whatever. This is their judgement call and they "picked up" the flag thrown over one half minute after the TD was scored. The error was in throwing the flag over half a minute after the play was over.
The final error was that a Miami player ran on the field after the play was concluding. The ACC admits this does not negate the touchdown but Miami would have been penalized if there was any time on the clock, which of course there was not.
Other commentators contend there were two other blocks in the backs on the play. It is not a block in the back if the defender turns his back toward a blocker while the offensive player and blocker are moving toward the opposing goal. So neither the block on the sideline or the block on the twenty five yard line as Elder was about to score were errors. There was no larceny whatsoever. The ACC owes Miami an apology for calling twenty three penalties against the team during the game, while Duke was only called for 5, a team and conference record for penalties against a team. Miami was penalized more than 150 yards more than Duke during the game In the past twenty years according to AP's Tim Reynolds, this was the second largest penalty disparity in a game in twenty years.
Here is the travesty. Cutliffe blew it and is blaming UM. He could have told his kicker to kick the ball out of bounds and let his first team defense defend UM from the 35 instead of his special teams unit defending the kick. He had confidence in his special teams unit and they failed. But rather than be a man and take responsibility for the choice in trusting that they could defend that play when they failed, he turns this into an anti UM thing. He claims more than 23 penalties should have been called against UM. He could have put Cash and his better defenders out there but he chose not to do so. Somehow, this is Miami's fault when his special teams unit fails. Why? Because everyone hated Miami in the 1980's and so they must still hate them enough today to ignore his BAD coaching decision.
The ACC should be CELEBRATING this play and telling players across the country that you come to play in the ACC because it is the conference where memorable plays happen like this one. Instead, the league commissioner from Charlotte favors the NC school over the Florida school and alleges the official costs the NC school the game. The Grand Larceny is the ACC commissioner stealing the integrity of the league in favor of one school over the other, substituting his personal judgement over the paid officials and suspending them because he didn't like the result. The Commissioner should be fired, and UM officials should demand a full investigation of his actions in this matter.
Finally, there were numerous bad and questionable calls in this game. There is a serious question whether the Duke quarterback had the ball across the goal line on its final drive. Replays showed the Miami defender push the ball on the hip of the quarterback and drive him away from the goal line. A TD was awarded because there was no goal line camera so the play stood. However, if there was a camera at the goal line, just as if there was a better camera on the Walton play, we might have had a definitive look to say no TD and time would have run out on Duke. Since it was okay for that play to stand since the camera angle was bad, why all the sudden is it okay to presume Walton's knee was down when there was NO indisputable visual evidence showing otherwise.
The Commissioner should not take sides in this matter and should not create controversy against any member school. The other non-North Carolina schools should vigorously protest the favoritism showed by the Commissioner in favor of the North Carolina school lest they be next to have the Commissioner turn against them in favor of the NC schools in the conference when one of them complains about the result. On so many levels, the ACC is wrong in this matter and the actions of the Commissioner are disgusting and member schools should pursue disciplinary actions against him for damage to the reputation of the conference for impugning the actions of the players and officials in the game.
Finally, if Notre Dame, USC, UCLA or anyone else pulls this off, we would praise the result. Because Miami won, it is somehow an issue. Ridiculous of the Commissioner to impugn Miami in this way, and ridiculous to feed the anti Miami media into this frenzy. Miami may have to seriously consider leaving the ACC based on the bad faith actions of its Commissioner in this matter.
