Michigan’s football team is full of players who want to be, and will be, NFL players in the near future. But they should count themselves fortunate that they weren’t playing by NFL rules on Saturday.
Down 12-7 with mere seconds left on the clock, Michigan’s Bryce Underwood launched a Hail Mary pass toward the end zone in a last-ditch bid to avert an historic disaster by losing to Western Michigan at home in head coach Kyle Whittingham’s first game.
The pass sailed out of the end zone with the broadcast clock showing zeroes.
Game over, right? Wrong.
Big Ten officials ruled that the clock kept by replay officials – which fans do not see – showed that there was one second left. That extra second gave Michigan an extra play and another chance to win the game. They did, with wide receiver JJ Buchanan catching the Hail Mary and sealing the improbable 13-12 comeback win.
A chaotic sequence of events that, according to Pereira, would never have happened had it occurred in the NFL.
“It is my understanding that if there is a discrepancy between the video and replay command center versus the television network video that everybody sees, that replay is to use the TV video. And that is the same protocol in the NFL and in the UFL. It’s the same. You use the footage that everybody sees if there is a discrepancy,” Pereira said.
While the NFL has a rule for this bizarre situation where the clocks are not synced, college football does not.
The Big Ten addressed the issue of clock synchronization in their statement following the controversial play.
“Eighty-five minutes before 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,” the statement read.
But this clearly didn’t happen.
As it was clear to all watching the broadcast, the clock showed 0:00 with the ball still in the air.
The clocks were not synced, and in the absence of any rule about what to do in such a situation, it appears the league just made it up as they went along.
The game is over, and the result will not be altered. But the Big Ten really needs to get their clocks synced up.