UNC/Pitt crew really earned their paychecks
 

These guys were busy all day. Funny sequence of plays in the first quarter:

UNC has first and goal from the five. They get called for 5 guys in the backfield.

Replay the down. Pass for an apparent TD, but they have the same illegal formation. It was funny--I think the white hat almost couldn't believe a team could do that twice in a row. he was going over it with his wing officials for a while to be sure. but the formation was definitely illegal.

then butch davis is yelling about it. he wants it reviewed. white hat announces that such a call isn't reviewable. (I have no idea what davis wanted reviewed. it wasn't like they busted a wideout for being in "no man's land" when he was supposed to be on. they CLEARLY had 5 guys in the backfield.)

two plays later the white hat and a wing have to confer to determine whether the QB's desperation chuck reached the neutral zone. it hadn't. so we have grounding.

3rd and goal. td pass. the knucklehead receiver punts the ball into the crowd for one of the easier USC calls you'll see..... plus, the replay official wants to look at the catch (call was confirmed).

A real "act like you been there before" performance this was not!

I just saw this whole sequence. What a dumbazz that WR is. Good thing for the broadcasters Jerry Austin, the long-time NFL WH, was in the booth to explain everything.

One question: No doubt it was a foul on the QB, but the WH announced it as IFP, not grounding. Is there a difference in NCAA because he was outside the tackles but the pass did not reach the line, or what?

It was about 2 yards short of the line of scrimmage, if at that.
While grounding is a variant of an illegal forward pass, for this specific play, the correct call should have been intentional grounding.
Result would be the same...

As stated, it was enforced correctly. I like clips of plays like this for clinics as they show just how easy it is for a vet official to get momentarily confused and mis-state something or mis-signal. I suspect if we could find some game footage of this R from the regualr season we would see him signal intentional grounding as what it is supposed to be and not illegal forward pass.

I was not a fan of the WH. While ALL the calls were correct, he just looked sloppy in presenting the fouls. On the very first one, he even started to give the signals in the wrong direction! (back towards the camera) haha. Plus the wrong signal given for intentional grounding. Overall though, I thought they did a great job, just was not a fan of the WH's mic skills.

I was at the game, and went to the restroom right after this sequence. They had the UNC play-by-play audio playing in over the speakers in the restroom.

The UNC guy was stating that the UNC coaches were talking to the officials, "educating them" on their formations so they will stop erroneously flagging them for illegal formation. I think the crew was Big East or Conf. USA maybe, and the radio guy stated that they probably didn't see sophisticated formations like UNC runs in the ACC.

Pure comedy!

The ESPN crew was fixated on the line during the replays and kept saying they thought the TE was on the line, so what was the problem?

Too bad they missed the man in motion on the left side on every replay. :rolleyes:

yeah at first the 3 broadcasters counted up the 5 in the backfield on replay and said, "I guess that's a good call."

but then they looked at the freeze frame and Bob Griese had a strange epiphany when he noticed that there was a TE on the end of the line....he then went on to say that butch davis had a legit complaint. (in griese's mind, I guess it'd be ok to have TE-C-TE on the line and 8 guys in the backfield.;))

after a noticeable pause, Chris Spielman said "Yeah, but even if the tightend is on the line, you still can't have 5 guys in the backfield, right?"

This must've blown Griese's mind, because there was no answer given.

I don't rip the tv guys when they don't know the rules. it's not their job to know them. but it is pretty funny sometimes. especially when the referee specifies 5 men in the backfield; the tv guys count up 5; but still they wonder if the crew got it right.:)

We call an illegal formation an a team and the coach yells give me a number and I say you had 5 men in the backfield coach and he looks right at me and says I don't have a number 5 on my team:eek:

It isn't? What's their job, just to talk for 3 hours?

Some of the rules aren't always easy to understand or comprehend if you aren't studying them on a regular basis like good officials do. I would never expect the announcers to know all of the rules or completely understand the ones they do know. I just wish they wouldn't question an official's judgment or rules knowledge. When I watch other sports I know I don't know the rules as well as the guys on the field/court so I assume they know something I don't know. Announcers could do themselves a huge service by thinking the same way. I like how the announcing crew has an official in the booth with them during bowl games to help explain rules or applications.

When they are in a position where they essentially tell people what to think, they'd better know what they're talking about.

People always tell me about calls in games and after they describe it, they always say "The announcer said it was a [good/bad] call." So, the general public values their opinion over the official's, so they'd better get a little more educated.

The general public is stupid.

It isn't their job to know the rules. Their job is to talk with the hopes of making the game more interesting to the viewer and therefore creating higher ratings.