Michigan beat Western Michigan 13-12 in Week 1, and the only thing anyone is talking about is the second that made it possible.
Here is what happened. Nine seconds left. Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood launched a throw from near midfield toward the end zone. A Western Michigan defender who was out of bounds got a hand on the ball as it traveled toward the back of the end zone. Broncos players started celebrating and ran onto the field, convinced they had the upset.
Officials waved everybody off. The play went to review. And when the review ended, one second was back on the clock. Underwood threw a Hail Mary to JJ Buchanan, who fell into the end zone, and Michigan won.
The problem is what viewers at home saw. On the broadcast, the clock hit triple zeroes before the ball appeared to reach the defender’s hand. Millions of people watched a game end and then watched it get un-ended.
The Big Ten’s explanation is that NBC’s replay feed was not in sync with the actual game clock used by the conference replay center. Officials say they looked at a side-by-side of the play alongside a direct shot of the stadium game clock, and that all broadcast cameras feeding the replay system, including the game clock camera, are synced through a strobe system.
Technically, that is a coherent answer. As a public explanation, it is close to useless.
You cannot tell an entire viewing audience that what they saw with their own eyes was an artifact of an out-of-sync feed and expect that to land. Not when the outcome of the game flips on it. Not when the beneficiary is Michigan and the victim is a MAC program that had earned the biggest win in years.
If the conference’s system really is more accurate than the television picture, then the conference has an obligation to show its work. Release the side-by-side. Release the stadium clock shot. Explain, frame by frame, why one second remained. The Big Ten had the material in the replay booth. Everyone else got a paragraph.
Western Michigan is not letting it go, and they should not. School president Russ Kavalhuna said WMU will work through official channels with their commissioner to seek a review of the ending. Coach Lance Taylor said after the game that his team was robbed. He is allowed to feel that way. His players had already left the sideline.
I want to be fair about one thing: officials reviewing a game-ending play and putting time back on is not automatically corrupt. Clocks do get stopped late. Reviews exist precisely to correct that. If the replay center had better information than the broadcast, using it was the correct procedure.
But procedure is only half of officiating. The other half is legitimacy, and legitimacy is built on people believing the explanation. Right now the Big Ten is asking for trust it has not earned in this specific instance, in a game where the blue blood got the second and the underdog got the paperwork.
The fix is not complicated. Show the footage. Publish the clock-sync methodology. Do it before the next time this happens instead of after, because it will happen again, and next time it might decide a playoff spot rather than a Week 1 non-conference game.
Michigan won. The scoreboard says 13-12. The rest of it is going to follow this conference for a while.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
