CJ Spiller took a pitch left during Saturday’s NC State/Clemson pigskin match-up with Clemson leading 24-14 and lost the ball after he was hit. The Wolfpack’s Clem Johnson recovered, but the referees ruled Spiller down. Clemson hurriedly ran their next play, a clear sign of a fumble. Notice in the above video that Spiller signals with his hand to hurry up and get the play off. The officials inexplicably failed to initiate a replay, forcing coach Tom O’Brien to call a timeout and challenge the play. The replay on the jumbotron showed a clear fumble. Brinson texted me from home that it was clearly a fumble. Everybody in the building and watching on TV knew it was a fumble. Everyone, that is, except the replay official. Clemson retained the ball, immediately scored and put the game out of reach.
The ACC’s head of officials informed O’Brien today that the play should have been overruled and called a fumble. I don’t know about you, but I feel much better now. Plays like this certainly call into question the worth of instant replay in college. Did the replay official not have the angle available to him that clearly showed a fumble, because he either did not have the angle or blatantly ignored a fumble. There is a huge imbalance in the quality of replay among college games. Do you think the Saturday night ABC game would have this problem with a dozen or more angles available? The noon Raycom game has three or four angles at most. It’s kind of like when the NCAA had to institute “official timeouts” in basketball to make up for all the TV timeouts that teams who played on TV often received. If the NCAA is going to allow game stoppages to replay, they need to get the freaking call right.
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Now all NCSU needs is a Offensive Line, Defensive Line, Linebackers, Defensive Backs, some special Teams, a better coach, and a time maching and they can maybe just maybe win this game!
They fucked up by giving the timeout in the first place, next play had already started, and covered it up by not changing the call.