Nobody handed the home team the game. Ainge still had to move the ball the necessary 25-30 yards, which he did, and Wilhoit still had to make a 50 yard FG, which he did. Fla had it's chances to ice this game and came up short.
Na na na na boo boo. Go Vols.
hey ! isn't tenn. the home of AlGore !
figures !
And he would have had to move 45 yards instead of 30 with 15 seconds instead of 45. Only a homer can't see the difference.
BTW, all 3 of the ESPN studio analyst not only said it was a horrendous call, but that it cost Florida the game.
Like I said earlier, normally I root against both teams, Tenn for its long history of running one of the dirtier sports programs in college athletics, and Florida for its long history of cupcake non-conference games outside of Gainesville and relying on overrating in the polls to get away with such a copout non-conference(at least Tenn usually includes a fairly tough non-conference opponent each year and isn't afraid to do it on the road), so until that call I had zero interest in who won. Had it been just a blown call, then so what, that happens all the time and isn't malicious. But this was a conscious decision to grossly favor one team and help change the outcome of the game. That kind of crap makes my blood boil. Not really much different than what the media does to the Swift Boat vets, just a different venue.
Yes, the play could easily have been called as offsetting penalties. The ref was obviously watching the entire sequence. But, it seems to me, the only rationale to the play as it was called was that the first head slap happened immediately at the end of the play as a sort of continuation. The FL player had to come back, after the play was clearly ended, to slap back. And, the 2nd slap was harder than the first. The first slap was borderline, and could have been called. The second was clearly over the line and should have been called.
Stuff goes on like that for the whole game. I've been on the losing end of similar calls/non-calls and had to live with it. Now I get to live with being on the other side of this one. It feels good. I'll take it!