Often it is therapeutic to deal with grievances through writing. I trust that this is the case for the current situation. I intend no personal disparagement to any individual in what follows.
I didn’t get to watch Kansas State’s bowl game live because I was at a conference in Omaha while it was on. I got home the next morning, tuned into espn3.com’s replays of the game, and settled in for the game. I had maintained no interaction with anyone who knew the final score and had no idea what to expect.
For the most part it was a great football game. K-State’s defense was terrible, but we knew that would be the case, and our offense played exceptionally well. Syracuse boasted the sixth-ranked defense in the nation and we shredded them. Carson Coffman had an admirable game in his final appearance as a Wildcat and hopefully will silence the naysayers on his career. He was never flashy, but he was efficient. It was a back and forth, punch for punch type of game that is so very much fun to watch, as say compared to the 10-6 UCF vs. Georgia battle. And then, the officials decided the outcome.
Before I get into that specific call, let me say that I fully acknowledge that Bill Snyder was outside of his mind to call a fake field goal run on fourth and five with the punter running the ball. In that situation, either line up the offense and let them do their thing, throw the football which would have a far better chance of success, or kick the darned field goal. We lost by two, three points certainly would have helped. I hate those boneheaded type decisions. In the slippery field conditions it doesn’t pay to try and block a field goal so the defense by nature was going to hang back and there was no chance of Ryan Doerr running the ball for five yards. A similar thing happened in the Iowa State vs. Nebraska game this year. The Cyclones went for the win instead of the tie by going for a two-point conversion but instead of lining up their successful offense that had been embarrassing the Huskers all afternoon, they tried a fake field goal pass with their punter. Stupid. Let the offense decide the outcome or come up with something wildly tricky.
That being said, that penalty call for excessive celebration was one of the most egregious and inconsistent penalty calls I have ever seen. This youtube video shows other touchdowns from the game and the celebrations the players made when they got to the endzone. Daniel Thomas bumps his chest on one of his scores, on another he kneels in the endzone. On one of his touchdown scores Marcus Sales makes either the “O” for the Syracuse Orange or a diamond or some symbol to the crowd and gets no penalty. In a game on the same day, with another Big 10 officiating crew, Tennessee performed two salutes after touchdowns without drawing the yellow cloth. Why were none of these penalized and yet Adrian Hilburn’s rather innocuous salute draws 15 yards and gives the game to the Orange? There is no explanation for that, even if Hilburn’s move did break the letter of the ambiguous law.
There is something different about a game in the final few minutes than the rest of the game as well. If they make that call in the first half (and make it consistently for both sides), I am fine with that. I think it is a dumb rule, but if you want to show you will be enforcing it, show that from the beginning. Don’t let everything prior to that go and then call it in the final minute of the game for the first time. There is no excuse for that. In basketball, in a close game, you have to be tackled in the last few seconds for a penalty to be called. And this is right. In the last few seconds you do not want to the referees to step in as the stars of the game and decide which time will win the game.
The game should be decided by the players from both teams. Would K-State have made their two-point conversion try? I don’t know. Would they have held Syracuse in the final minute from marching to field goal territory? I don’t know. Would they have been able to slow them down in overtime and win the game? I don’t know. But we should have been given the chance to know. That penalty removed all chance from the game and effectively decided the outcome. Now Adrian Hilburn’s terrific catch and run will be remembered for a salute to a small crowd of K-State fans that had braved arctic conditions to come to the game that cost his team the chance of winning. That is not fair to him. We shouldn’t remember that salute at all, but now it is the defining play of that game. And that is a shame for both teams. Instead of an entertaining back and forth scoring battle, it will be remembered for the officials whistle and a piece of yellow cloth.
OK, I think I can move on now. National championship prediction: Oregon 35, Auburn 31, Go Ducks.
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