Posted on 09/15/2013 9:47:39 AM PDT by Colofornian
STATE COLLEGE — The defense tried everything: man coverage, zone converge, half-man, half-zone, blitzes, zone-blitzes, personnel changes and much guttural screaming. Wasn't enough.
"That's one thing I know I can say," Penn State defensive coordinator John Butler said. "We emptied the game plan."
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.mcall.com ...
Both teams had sure touchdowns taken away from them in the late-going.
First, Central Florida had one taken away that would have made it 35-17. The call on the field was a touchdown, difficult to reverse with the weird camera angle of the play. The view clearly showed the ball-carrier's elbow coming down just before the goal line...the problem was that the point of the ball was above the elbow...and reviewing referees would have needed tea leaves to figure out the inches of whether the ball broke the goal line or not.
Usually on such a play, the call on the field would have stood.
Penn State made a stand -- and Central Florida had to settle for a field goal.
As the home team struggled to come back, a Nittany Lion receiver had a defender beat -- so the Central Florida back simply grabbed the guy by the feet -- tackling him. Yes, it was a first down (interference call). But no touchdown. And on the next play, Penn State fumbled the ball away.
I guess it all evened out: The cheatin' Black Knight back did the unsportsmanlike thing of cheating Penn State out of a touchdown...after the refs stole one from the Black Knights.
After watching the late-game shenanigans of the officials at the Akron-Michigan game, ya gotta wonder about those Big 10 officials!
On the subject of officials: I saw both Oklahoma and Alabama issued penalties in which defensive players were originally ejected because of hits to the head. The replay officials then overturned the ejections but allowed the penalties. Commentators in both games seems to agree that the rule needs tweaking. How can a penalty stay if the replay official overturned the more egregious ruling?
(Yeah, I saw one of those as well...I was rootin’ against Alabama & I could see the Alabama guy didn’t target the player...and ‘twas an overreaction by the official...the reason why tho was the review process isn’t meant to correct a flag...otherwise, you’d get officials over-sensitive about having their flags reviewed)
What you described I wouldn't call cheating. It's a heads-up play to take down a potential touchdown pass receiver and draw a defensive pass interference penalty, knowing that the maximum penalty for that infraction is 15 yards.
That's been in the college football rulebook for quite a while now, so all defensive backs are coached to do it. Rulesmakers had to expect some of that ever since they changed the defensive pass interference penalty from placing the ball at the spot of the foul (as is still the rule in the NFL) to the current 15 yard max about 20 years ago.
A person can be civilly liable for another person’s death yet be not guilty of murder.
A less egregious ruling can overturn a more egregious ruling, but not the other way around.
Wow. UCF’s next game is against the SC Gamecocks in Orlando, on the 28th.
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