calumnus said:
TheFiatLux said:
Thank for sharing the link, but I gotta say, I found that a really, really odd write up. I felt almost as if a Stanford fan wrote it. In fact, in genuinely annoyed me.
The part about Moffett's history at Kansas was was really interesting and gave great insight into what his approach might be that led to the outcome.. Speaking of Moffett, don't you think it's kind of weird that a former Daily Cal writer, and now a guy submitting an article for our monthly might bring up the interesting coincidence that the ref had the same name as the undergrad library? That would be a fun thing to include...
And some of the points he makes:
The refs didn't "give us the game" or "flout the rules"
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In giving Cal the winning touchdown, the six men in black and white may or may not have flouted the rules.
I don't even know what this means, how did they "help violate" the conventions or orderly competition? What were they supposed to do?
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Without doubt, they had helped violate the conventions of orderly competition.
Actually, no, not this at all...
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And we also saw the things we never dare concede in loud, performative bull sessions with you TreePeople.
Nope, nope and nope.
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We saw Cal running back Dwight Garner squashed under a pile of Stanford players and acknowledge the powerful, magical thinking we must invoke to insist Garner couldn't possibly have been down.
But the most inane is this... *** "should have"????
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At the risk of surrendering my hard-earned Cal Fanatic card, I concede it here and now: The 85th Big Game righteously could have, maybe should have, finished with the penultimate play, a Mark Harmon field goal capping a heart-stopping 2019 Stanford victory.
And I could go on and on with the rest of the piece... of you know I can :-) But I'll leave it at those.
The Firmite article that he references is sooooooo much better.
This article actually left me annoyed. Really annoyed. I'm laughing at myself at how annoyed I am this this!
Wow. Those ARE ridiculous. More than annoying. The quote about Garner the worst. If he was "buried" how did he pitch the ball?
I don't think there is any doubt with respect to the Garner pitch -- if the only video that exists, cleaned up as best as it can be and blown up, were used for replay review, the call that Garner was not down would stand. It wouldn't be confirmed, it would stand. If he had been called down, it would stand. Anyone who argues otherwise is wearing red or blue colored glasses.
From the student side, I had a much better view of Garner's knee, I could see pretty clearly when it hit, as well as when the ball got out, and while it was extremely close, I did not think, and still do not think, his knee was down. At the time, I was thinking of how many blown calls I had seen in the 1982 season on fumbles, runner called down when he wasn't, runner called not down when he was, and this one was SO much closer than a lot of blown calls I had seen, so I was worried he would be called down even though I thought he wasn't. In a time before replay, it was a call that was so close, the officials couldn't really be "wrong" either way. But based on my view, they got it right.
The Ford pitch to Moen is another issue, but only in the era of replay could that possibly be overturned. Ford threw the ball back over his shoulder, relative to his body it was a backward pass, and only because his body was moving forward at the time could it have been a forward pass. I have NEVER seen an illegal forward pass called when the ball went backwards relative to the player, refs will NEVER see that, I don't think the spirit of the rules even calls for that to be an illegal forward pass, but the letter of the rule might, so in the replay era it could be overturned (even so, it is still likely that on review, the call would stand, even if from the video it PROBABLY was released in front of where it was caught).
Other than allowing Stanford to kickoff when Cal did not have 5 men in the 10-15 yard zone from the kickoff (as the Fimrite article first pointed out, there was no penalty, the officials should not have allowed the kickoff), the officials did nothing wrong. Other than that initial item, it was a perfectly officiated play.