Advertisement

Miami's eight-lateral victory over Duke should be reversed

 
Miami's Dallas Crawford (25) returns a kickoff,  which featured multiple laterals before Corn Elder subsequently received the final lateral, and scored to beat Duke 30-27 on Oct. 31. [AP photo]
Miami's Dallas Crawford (25) returns a kickoff, which featured multiple laterals before Corn Elder subsequently received the final lateral, and scored to beat Duke 30-27 on Oct. 31. [AP photo]
Published Nov. 4, 2015

It's not too late. It's never too late.

Isn't that what we say about righting a wrong? That it's never too late to do the right thing?

If we know something is absolutely, undeniably, 100 percent wrong and we can fix it in order to make it absolutely, undeniably and 100 percent correct, well, isn't that what we should do?

By now, you've probably seen the ending of Saturday's Duke-Miami football game. On the last play of the game — and it's important to remember that it was the last play — Miami took a kickoff and used eight laterals to score a holy mackerel touchdown for a 30-27 victory.

Fun to watch, for sure, the type of play you will see on highlight reels for years and years. Just like that time when Cal weaved and lateraled its way through Stanford's players and marching band for a crazy-ending victory.

Miami's improbable victory was everything you could want in the end of a game. What a win for Miami.

Except it wasn't a win. It should not have counted.

That's not me saying that. The Atlantic Coast Conference says so. That's the conference of both Miami and Duke.

The ACC says the game officials made at least four mistakes on the final play, the most critical being that a Miami player was down before one of the laterals.

Replay at the time should have fixed the error. Inexplicably, it did not. The play stood and Miami won.

But 13 hours after the teams left the field with Miami declared the winner, the ACC suspended the officials for two games. Why? Because the officials messed up. They blew it.

Forget about possible illegal blocks in the back or helmet-less players coming off the bench. Here's the only part you should care about:

In announcing the suspensions, the ACC said in a statement: "The replay official erred in not overturning the ruling on the field that the Miami player had released the ball prior to his knee being down. If called, this would have ended the game.''

Did you catch that last sentence? If called, this would have ended the game.

It should have been called. The game should have ended.

In the end, the only thing Duke gets out of it is an apology. Whoops. Sorry, fellas. Our bad.

Are you kidding me? Is that supposed to make Duke feel better?

That loss knocked Duke out of the Top 25. It could knock the Blue Devils out of the ACC Championship Game. And that, ultimately, could affect the college football playoffs.

"The NCAA should have a process to reverse the outcome of the game," Duke coach David Cutcliffe said in his Sunday news conference. "Nothing has changed other than they realized they got the replay wrong."

Cutcliffe is absolutely right. Nothing has changed since then.

Go back to Saturday night. The play was reviewed and discussed for nine minutes before officials decided that the touchdown should stand. But, had replay worked as it was supposed to, the touchdown would have been waved off. The game would have ended with Duke winning. The nine minutes would have been well worth the time and no one would have said a word about it because, ultimately, officials would have gotten the call right.

Stay updated on Tampa Bay’s sports scene

Subscribe to our free Sports Today newsletter

We’ll send you news and analysis on the Bucs, Lightning, Rays and Florida’s college football teams every day.

You’re all signed up!

Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.

Explore all your options

Okay, so it took nine minutes.

What if it had taken 10 minutes? Or 30? Or an hour?

Doesn't matter. All that matters is that the play would have been called correctly, that the team that deserved the victory would have been awarded the victory.

So what should it matter that four days have now passed?

There are two arguments for letting the play stand even though everyone agrees that Duke got a raw deal. One is that it's now too late. The game is over. You can't go back and change it because, well, you just can't. It has never been done.

There's an NCAA rule — officially, it's Rule 1, Section 1, Article 3b — that states: "When the referee declares that the game is ended, the score is final."

But the rules never could have accounted for this scenario.

The other argument is that you could go back in every game and find a bunch of calls that officials missed, calls that altered the outcome. Are we supposed to look at a bunch of replays before declaring a winner? Where would it all stop? Isn't a missed call in the second quarter just as important as a call in the last minute?

Here's the difference: this was the last play. The last play. There was no time left for another play. It's not as if Miami had a chance to run another play. And it's not as if Duke had a chance to run another play.

Time had run out. The game was over. Duke had no time to overcome the bad call.

Consider this: if the call were overturned today, if Duke were awarded the victory, could you honestly say that it would be unfair to Miami?

So it ends like this:

Yes, Duke, the Miami player was down. We missed the call. You should have won. We should award you the victory and it would be easy to do so, but we're not going to. Why? Uh, because it would be weird.

And, besides, do you know how much money was gambled on that game? How are we supposed to fix that?

The ACC embarrassed itself with how the final play was officiated.

It embarrassed itself even more by refusing to fix it even though it could. It should have awarded the victory to Duke. It still can.

It's never too late to do the right thing.