REPLY: I heard the same thing and I was shaking my head too. It
was Mike Patrick, another officiating expert that honed his skills working beside Joe Theismann.
The umpire can certainly give a discrete signal to the wings to indicate that he has a ball in the runner's possession in the endzone, but it is the wing(s) only that can ultimately determine if the runner made it to the endzone before his knee hit the ground.