[M T]

 Finally, there was a pivotal play in the game in which the ruling on the field was that McKee fumbled yet inexplicably the call was overturned on replay, squelching Notre Dame's comeback. Say what you will about how close the knee down/fumble were (I thought essentially simultaneous), to overturn a call of fumble on the field based on that video cannot be explained and robbed Notre Dame. 

The rule speaks of indisputable evidence that the call is wrong, not of how close the call is to being right.  In this case, there is a frame in the replay, with the knee on the ground, one end of the ball in the the crook of his arm, and his hand holding the ball at the other end.  A frame later his hand is losing contact with the ball.  If his knee hit the ground 1/30th of a second later, it should have been ruled a fumble.  I can certainly see how one could argue that you can't tell if you only see the play at 30 frames/second.  Close in timing to a fumble, but that one frame gives indisputable evidence that his knee was down and he had control of the ball at that instant.


But, speaking of poor calls, I thought the rule was that the receiver is considered inbounds if the defender pushes him out of bounds before he can get his foot down. Am I wrong, or did the refs get the call wrong where the Stanford receiver came down with almost a full foot inbounds. The defender was carrying him out as he came down.

[M T]

 Finally, there was a pivotal play in the game in which the ruling on the field was that McKee fumbled yet inexplicably the call was overturned on replay, squelching Notre Dame's comeback. Say what you will about how close the knee down/fumble were (I thought essentially simultaneous), to overturn a call of fumble on the field based on that video cannot be explained and robbed Notre Dame. 

The rule speaks of indisputable evidence that the call is wrong, not of how close the call is to being right.  In this case, there is a frame in the replay, with the knee on the ground, one end of the ball in the the crook of his arm, and his hand holding the ball at the other end.  A frame later his hand is losing contact with the ball.  If his knee hit the ground 1/30th of a second later, it should have been ruled a fumble.  I can certainly see how one could argue that you can't tell if you only see the play at 30 frames/second.  Close in timing to a fumble, but that one frame gives indisputable evidence that his knee was down and he had control of the ball at that instant.


But, speaking of poor calls, I thought the rule was that the receiver is considered inbounds if the defender pushes him out of bounds before he can get his foot down. Am I wrong, or did the refs get the call wrong where the Stanford receiver came down with almost a full foot inbounds. The defender was carrying him out as he came down.