The final weekend of the regular season has come and gone, and there was no shortage of drama. Here are a few examples of gridiron villainy as we head towards Bowl selections:
Atlantic Coast Conference officials: a blown call late in the ACC Championship Game between Clemson and North Carolina has shone yet one another ugly spotlight on the state of officiating across the entire FBS level of college football. This was a game with massive playoff implications and the officials made a howler.
The situation was thus: UNC trailed by eight, were setting up for an onside kick with 1:13 left in the game and three time-outs. The onside kick was recovered by the Tar Heels but a flag for offside on the kick came out, and after a five-yard penalty, the second kick ended up in Clemson hands.
We saw so many angles – too many angles! – of the kick-off, and I fail to see where any North Carolina jersey was offside. None were even close to being offside. Where the official came up with the notion that the Tar Heels were offside is beyond me. Watch the replay for yourself. You’ll see that it wasn’t even close!
With UNC in possession of the football, anything could have happened in the remaining seventy-three seconds. Therefore, that one horribly blown call might have changed the entire course of the playoff for 2015. Tar Heel fans and players are rightly perturbed by this.
Sunday’s inevitable press release from the office of the ACC commissioner should be interesting – and if this isn’t a good enough reason to make all decisions reviewable inside the last two minutes, I don’t know what is. There’s too much on the line in college football these days for games to end on horrible calls.
Houston security guards: shocking footage of hired security guards punching and body slamming fans who were trying to rush the field after the Cougars beat Temple for the American Athletic Conference championship emerged as Saturday afternoon became Saturday night. School officials are “disappointed.” They should be downright embarrassed, too. This was a case of security personnel going way over the line.
Florida’s offense: it was, in a word, woeful on Saturday. The 29-15 score line in the SEC Championship Game flattered the Gators, who were completely and horribly outclassed by Alabama in the Georgia Dome. This was men against boys. After gaining 83 yards in the first quarter, Florida managed three yards total in the second and third quarter, at 0.1 yards per play. Just shocking numbers.
QB Treon Harris was 9-24 for 165 yards, a touchdown and an interception, but 46 of those 165 yards came at the end, when he threw his only score – a junk-time effort in a game already well and truly gone, and Florida’s only offensive touchdown. As if that wasn’t enough, Harris ran eleven times for -4 yards. Nothing worked for Jim McElwain’s squad on Saturday. It was tough to watch.
Baylor: the Bears managed to lose to a pretty bad Texas squad 23-17, but that scarcely tells the story. Already down to their third stringer, Chris Johnson, Baylor was forced to activate the fourth quarterback on their depth chart after Johnson went off injured. The creatively-named Lynx Hawthorne couldn’t do enough to claw back a 20-point deficit, and with the home loss go Baylor’s Sugar Bowl chances. A once-promising season got worse and worse and worse following the Seth Russell injury against Iowa State.
Brigham Young: the Cougars lost long-time head coach Bronco Mendenhall to Virginia after the Bowl game. That’s a major loss for the school, and one that not many people – myself included – saw coming. And it gets worse: because of school policy that dictates any head football coach must be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, have about a three-man pool of coaching candidates to choose from. None of the names are particularly inspiring, either. It’s hard to get results with that sort of situation.
Southern California: the Trojans couldn’t stop Christian McCaffrey, and Christian McCaffrey, if not stopped, will destroy you. The Stanford running back had a hand in everything in the Pac-12 Championship Game – running, passing, returning punts and kick-offs – and no matter what USC defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox called, it was ineffective. There won’t be too many tears shed in Los Angeles if Wilcox is let go at season’s end.
Ohio State and Stanford: both schools needed wins by Florida and North Carolina on Saturday to have any hope of sneaking into the College Football Playoff bracket. Alas, it didn’t happen, and both schools will likely end up facing each other in the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, depending on whether Rose Bowl officials look past an Iowa squad that barely lost to Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship.
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