There’s nationwide outrage over what many fans see as shenanigans by the Big Ten office. That said, WMU made multiple gaffes at the end of the game. That final play wouldn’t have happened if they had defended UM’s final drive strategically.
People across the country expressed outrage. The Big Ten and its officials gave Michigan an incredibly beneficial call, adding one more second to the clock to avoid an upset by Western Michigan. They point out that separate clocks were being used, but the clock that “mattered” was visible only to the Big Ten officials.
I certainly believe that not having a clock the rest of us could see is cause for suspicion. If the situation had been reversed, with Michigan clinging to a five-point lead, I can’t say I believe WMU would have received the same benefit. However, the officials don’t deserve all the blame. Western Michigan shares responsibility for this loss, and perhaps more than the officials.
Western Michigan took a 12-7 lead into the final 35 seconds of the game, and then Michigan had the ball at the 75-yard line with no timeouts. They proceeded to throw two incompletions for no yards and faced a 3rd and ten with 19 seconds left. WMU allowed a 28-yard completion for a first down. Michigan spiked the ball to kill the clock with nine seconds left.
For the Wolverine faithful, what followed was the difference between an upset and a huge sigh of relief. The UM QB threw the ball toward the end zone with seven seconds left, but he threw it long. The ball sailed over heads and fell to the ground outside of the back end zone. There were all zeroes on the clock.
Game over, WMU wins. Except it wasn’t.
From a secret lair somewhere in Big-10 land, the officials deemed that a WMU player had touched the ball out of bounds before the clock ran out. Therefore, under NCAA Football Rule 4-2-3-a, they stopped the clock: “A loose ball not controlled by a player becomes out of bounds the instant it touches the ground, a player, an official, or any object located on or outside a boundary line, which immediately stops the game clock.”
Photo courtesy Yahoo! Sports
But every replay an average viewer could see showed all zeros.
What followed next was a fairy-tale ending for Michigan and a nightmare for Western Michigan. UM went back to the line of scrimmage, and the quarterback heaved the ball for the last play of the game. That 47-yard heave went straight into the arms of a receiver. He fell into the end zone to score. Game over.
Source: BIG
The Big Ten responded with a public statement that bordered on outrage. How could people question or dispute the call?
There’s no question Michigan benefited from their conference having their back, but I can’t overlook Western Michigan’s role in this debacle.
Not only were the Broncos poised to pull off a massive upset, but the bigger story is that they (not Michigan) were in the driver’s seat most of the game. But then the worm turned.
Leading 12-7 with little time left, WMU made not one, but multiple, gaffes that contributed mightily to the final outcome.
First, the kickoff after WMU went up 12-10 with 35 seconds left and Michigan out of timeouts: The Broncos kicked the ball out of play, running no time off the clock. I understand the risk of a kick return for a score, but statistically that occurs on roughly .9 to 1.5% of college football kickoffs, which puts the risk-reward equation strongly in the Broncos’ favor. Instead, WMU should have kicked the ball short, daring Michigan to return it. If Michigan fair catches the ball, same situation (no time off the clock). But if the return man runs, UM might have gotten better field position, but that move would have taken precious time off the clock.
Second, UM converted a 3rd and 10 with a 28-yard completed pass. Going into that play, the Michigan QB was 10 for 19 for 95 yards and an interception. But now, that completion gave Michigan hope. If WMU had made the stop there, it would have put UM into a live-or-die 4th-down situation, without timeouts to set up the play, and with a sophomore QB who has played poorly much of the game. Three huge factors that would have favored the Broncos.
Third, there’s WMU’s inability to defend the Hail Mary. Hail Mary passes are successful roughly 8-10% of the time, and when the ball is hicked from the midfield area, the success rate is at the highest end of that range. Still, that means the defense prevails nine out of ten times. To do that, the D must keep the ball from being caught near, at, or beyond the goal line. Instead, the Broncos made a basic mistake. Focusing on keeping Wolverine pass catchers from making a grab in the end zone, they failed to protect the entrance to it.
So at the end of the day, blaming the officials is only one side of the coin. Western Michigan deserves an equal, if not greater, share of the blame. The Broncos and their fans paid dearly with tears and pangs of regret. What should have beenUM wasn’t to be.
