The cold light of morning, part 2

“Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.”

-Hanlon’s Razor

 

“Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.”

-Gray’s Law

 

“On the last play of the Vanderbilt-Tennessee game, in overtime, the Tennessee defender intercepted the pass, his knee did not touch the ground and he returned the interception for a touchdown. During the play, the head linesman incorrectly ruled that the Tennessee player’s knee was down when he intercepted the pass by blowing his whistle and giving the dead ball signal. The play was reviewed as if there was no whistle on the field, and as a result, overturned the incorrect ruling. By rule, if there was a whistle blown, the play is not reviewable.”

-Steve Shaw, SEC Coordinator of Officials

 

So.

 

If I understand correctly, the sequence of events went like this:

1) Jordan Rodgers threw his third pick (and fourth turnover) of the game.  Make no mistake, we lost this game because of turnovers, not officiating.  Explaining why we lost is not the point of this exercise.

2) The Tennessee defender was hit, but did not go down, and took off running.

3) The head linesman blew the play dead and pointed at the ground, by which point the Tennessee player and his convoy had long since headed for the end zone.

4) Derek Dooley did *not* challenge the ruling on the field, believing that the whistle was not reviewable.  (I am going here by what I remember from his postgame remarks, but I recall him being defensive about this fact and desiring to explain to the fans at the time that the reason he wasn’t challenging was because it wasn’t a reviewable play.)

5) The play was reviewed, it was determined that the knee was in fact not down, and the touchdown stood.

So what we have here is a case where an official screwed up by blowing a whistle when he shouldn’t have.  At that point, the officiating crew made the decision to review a call that, by rule, is not reviewable.

Again, I am not saying the officiating cost us the game.  The outcome was what should have happened to begin with, were the play called with no errors.  So let’s not act like we’re trying to make excuses for the loss with this.  The point is this: if the officials can ignore rules to cover their own mistakes, how much confidence do you have in their officiating the rest of the way?

The one thing that can be said with certainty: if the rumblings are true that the linesman denied blowing the whistle, he should never set foot in an SEC stadium again.

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