We have no preview of Drake this week. Instead, we are going to take another look back at some of the controversial calls from Saturday’s win over Montana State. Our teammate Alex Kenkel works as a high school official and has provided us with interpretations of rules over the last few years. With so many interesting calls on Saturday, Alex provided his insight!
The game obviously got goofy at the end, and I’ll elaborate there but overall I thought it was a well called game. The Gronowski fumble definitely looked out of bounds but I also understood why it stood. Because it was called recovery from they’d have had to stop and lack of control prior to a body hitting the white with contact of the football. Between the angle (my goodness we have the best facility in the FCS but the worst replay angles can we please move the cameras and/or invest in some new ones) and pile of bodies never really had a shot at reversing it
The missed face mask on Gronowski right before the blocked punt. Yes, some people were pissed specifically at the U for not calling it. Not his call. Only R and sometimes C can call fouls pertaining to passer behind the line. Plus that’s not what U should be looking at if he’s doing his job. Unfortunately, it was missed call but R and C both had a bad angle because they were standing where the were supposed to. It’s the kind of thing that unfortunately happens over the course of a game. Sometimes it’s big sometimes it isn’t. This is why I’m in favor of NFL style Sky judge and giving Sky J ability to “flag” from the booth but that’s a whole can of worms we don’t need to get into.
The 2nd to last play. I actually had a guy in my Friday crew watch it that works NAIA and D3 and got his thoughts since he knows college better than I do. The catch itself from where I was sitting was shocking to be ruled complete. I thought it was clear and obvious he was out before he full possessed it. Glad replay official saw it the same way. Yes, there’s that still going around but he adjusts his grip/bobbles after it. Why we can’t officiate off stills especially without context.
Was Chambers past the line? Probably but it was too close to get that call. In NCAA if any part of the passer, even his back pinky toe, is in the expanded neutral zone he can still throw it. Obviously, the neutral zone is the plane of the football extended so where was it at the start of the play? 24.5 yard line. Why the hell are we on the 24.5 and not the 24 or 25? Well the short wings and U work together to spot the ball every play. When you are between the 20s unless you are within 2 yards of the LTG (line to gain/first down marker) you are supposed to just put it right on a yard marker. Ok, if it 2nd and 16 from the 24.5 did the crew screw up?! Not so fast. The drive started inside the 20 so we marked it at the 19.5. We had an incompletion on first down. False start. Boom crew did nothing wrong but we’re still between tick marks. So even though Chambers’ back foot appears to be at the 24.25 (about 9 inches too far) the replay official would’ve had to had his whole body at or beyond the 24 as that’s our nearest land mark. And thus the call stood. Meaning, yes, just because they didn’t say that explicitly they almost certainly looked at it along with the catch and the clock.
Go Jacks!
Alex