Duke @ Notre Dame Plays (Video)

[so cal lurker]

Originally Posted by ballgame99

he probably guessed there was a push, so he should just hold off on that call.

Seriously? You're going to critique a D1 official by assuming that he guessed and based on that conclude that he should have held off? There's no question there was a push there -- the only question is whether it should have been called. I'm never a fan of isolating a single play like this on that type of contact. We expect players to adjust to the game that is being called by the officials that day -- but then we critique a call out of context of the other calls in the game. In a vaccum, I'm inclined to think it should be called, BUT in my mind it is certainly gray enough that the context of the game such that the level of contact being permitted throughout determines if it was (A) a clear call that had to be made, (B) a 50-50 call that could go either way, or (C) a "gotcha" call that came out of nowhere. (And I haven't seen any of the game other than the three clips, so I have no way to pick one of the categories.)