Replay review at end of WMU at MU

[SCline]

Gonna need an explanation of why one second was put back on the clock.

It sure looks bad what was shown on national tv.

[Imperial Stout]

Ron has a bit of a situation on his hands early on in his career at his new position

[ElvisLives]

Inform the uninformed, please.

[Eddieb85]

https://x.com/bigten/status/2096460445213217097

Note, this is Snodgrass's old crew on the field.

[Imperial Stout]

To me, some sort of production error by the media partner triggered this whole mess. Its superimposed image of the stadium clock was not in sync with the video it showed on replay. The clock was reset to 9 seconds before the play, so that would have been 9 full seconds, with the clock starting on the snap. When the replay was shown, almost immediately after the snap, the clock already ticked down to 8, and the entire play took less than 9 seconds.

I hope this media partner would come out and apologize for the trouble they've caused.

[ElvisLives]

All media partners should pony up and pay to have an interconnect with the stadium/arena clock installed at all venues. No need to ‘sync,’ in that scenario.

[zebrastripes]

All media partners should pony up and pay to have an interconnect with the stadium/arena clock installed at all venues. No need to ‘sync,’ in that scenario.

Pardon my ignorance but don’t they already do that? Isn’t that how they get the clock to show on the scorebug?

[zebrastripes]

Now everyone (Joel Klatt) is saying they want the clocks to show tenths. I guess high school is on the forefront of that idea 

But seriously, I’m not entirely sure what having tenths displayed on the clock would actually accomplish. It just means that, in this case, the clock everyone was seeing on TV would show 0.0 while the one replay had would show 0.3 or something like that. How does that resolve the issue?

[Imperial Stout]

For this case, if the clock had tenths, the impact would have been at the snap making a problem with the TV broadcast apparent. The replay NBC showed would have had the embedded video of the scoreboard clock already at around 8.4 seconds when the ball was snapped even though it was reset to 9 seconds before the play.

It slows everything else down now having to quibble over a tenth

[zebrastripes]

For this case, if the clock had tenths, the impact would have been at the snap making a problem with the TV broadcast apparent. The replay NBC showed would have had the embedded video of the scoreboard clock already at around 8.4 seconds when the ball was snapped even though it was reset to 9 seconds before the play.

It slows everything else down now having to quibble over a tenth

But wouldn’t there still be the issue of the replay center’s clock displaying more than what the television broadcast shows?

The other idea that I heard Mike Pereira mention would be to go to the NFL rule where replay is not allowed to add time back to the  game clock unless it reads 0:02 or more (meaning actual time is 1.1 to 2.0 seconds) at the time the ball becomes dead. The intent of that rule is to account for lag time by the operator throughout the game. In this particular situation there would have been no clock adjustment since all the clocks read 0:00 or 0:01.

[Imperial Stout]

But wouldn’t there still be the issue of the replay center’s clock displaying more than what the television broadcast shows?

The other idea that I heard Mike Pereira mention would be to go to the NFL rule where replay is not allowed to add time back to the  game clock unless it reads 0:02 or more (meaning actual time is 1.1 to 2.0 seconds) at the time the ball becomes dead. The intent of that rule is to account for lag time by the operator throughout the game. In this particular situation there would have been no clock adjustment since all the clocks read 0:00 or 0:01.

Absolutely correct. The point I was getting at was it would at least show the world the TV broadcast of syncing things up is far from perfect and can’t be relied upon. This thing blew up because people took the NBC replay as the gospel.

The NFL rule acknowledges there is a margin of error or tolerance for these end of game scenarios. If it’s just one second, then don’t make a change. Of course that won’t stop the complaining.

[ljudge]

The clock will never show 0:00 when there are 0:00.4 seconds.  In fact, the way these clocks work is that they display 0:01 when they drop below 0:02, BUT stay at 0:01 for 1.9 seconds.  One of you mentioned something about it almost "immediately" dropping to 8 seconds.  That's highly likely because there were (perhaps) 0.09.1 on the internal clock's electronics, but the display is 0:09 until it drops below that mark.  If you've ever noticed that when you hit "start" when the clock is at 15:00, it instantly goes to 14:59, that's because there are 14:59.9 seconds "immediately" when you activate the clock.  Bottom line: on the front end, it appears as though you lost a second, but inside the backend (final second), it appears you have gained a second.  That's been explained at multiple replay clinics I've attended.   

[dammitbobby]

This just got even more complicated:

Heather Dinich
The MAC has issued a statement saying “it is now evident that replay protocol was not properly followed” during the Michigan game. The league has submitted formal appeals to the NCAA FBS oversight committee and the CFP asking they recognize Western Michigan as the actual winner “for the purposes of their respective rankings, evaluations and selection deliberations, and take such other corrective actions as may be within their authority.”

https://www.espn.com/contributor/heather-dinich/4ae2a5a758587

Probably not likely to succeed, I don't see it as being any different than a 5th down, although of all the examples I can think of in the last decade that actually might warrant after-the-fact action to adjust the outcome, this certainly is up there. That said, everybody loses here, no matter what they do, or don't do.

also: https://x.com/JoelKlattShow/status/2096954965378167220/video/1

[SCline]

This is the most likely situation to succeed. I doubt it does. I am glad that we are learning that the process did not follow replay procedure because on Sunday and Monday I thought it very odd that IR process was okay with overturning what every one watching saw easily.

[ElvisLives]

What SHOULD come out of this is that TV no longer uses their own timing. The field clock can be the ONLY game timing system used for in-stadium and broadcast purposes. TV can only use video of the actual field clock, OR, the NCAA can allow TV to have a supplemental field clock display - ALWAYS CONTROLLED ONLY BY THE OFFICIAL GAME CLOCK OPERATOR - either of which is then superimposed on all recorded game video views.
The TV audience and the spectators viewing the in-stadium video board, simply cannot see something different than what replay (and the Command Center) sees.

[BTP]

At least one of the NBC production clocks or the replay system clocks were badly mis-synced.

Having worked in both football officiating and broadcasting, my first impulse is that broadcaster error is more likely.

That doesn't preclude replay error. "At least one was wrong" does not imply "At least one was right."

[Imperial Stout]

Well, here is this ... begs the question of "when accurately displayed" means as there was at least a half second differential between what NBC showed, and what the replay command center had in this particular case.

[zebrastripes]

Is it possible for multiple visible clocks within the same stadium to read differently due to general lagging even though both are controlled by the same clock operator using the same switch? All of these stadiums have more than one visible clock.

[dammitbobby]

Is it possible for multiple visible clocks within the same stadium to read differently due to general lagging even though both are controlled by the same clock operator using the same switch? All of these stadiums have more than one visible clock.

Yes. It can be impacted by latency/lag particularly if they have different kinds of connectors and cabling (cat 5, cat 6, coax, fiber, etc.). Usually not by a lot, (usually milliseconds) but from a networking perspective there can be different things that impact the flow of 1s and 0s (network traffic), bottlenecks, etc.

[ump_ben]

And now we have the inverse?  BYU-ND Clock showed 1 second and replay didn't restore time. 

The play starts at 4 seconds and the play takes just over 4 seconds.  The interpretation reads "when there is clear and obvious video evidence that time SHOULD HAVE remained on the game clock when the ball became dead."  Emphasis mine.  So it seems the interpretation really clears nothing up because SHOULD HAVE could mean if the clock had been stopped at the instant it should have.  Or it could mean: if the clock had run correctly for the whole play.  Or it could mean: if the clock had run the way football clocks have always run before people got crazy with IR timing fixes.  The 2 second fix the NFL has seems to be a good way to account for all of this.

[ncwingman]

You see, the added second in the WMU/Mich game was preemptively taken from the end of the BYU/ND game, so everything is even up now. 

[zebrastripes]

Do these P4 leagues all assign “neutral” clock operators, or are they provided by the host school?

And yeah, the NFL rule seems to make the most sense here. There’s always a lag between when the ball becomes dead, the official makes a signal, and the GCO flips the switch.

[Grant - AR]

Do these P4 leagues all assign “neutral” clock operators, or are they provided by the host school?

And yeah, the NFL rule seems to make the most sense here. There’s always a lag between when the ball becomes dead, the official makes a signal, and the GCO flips the switch.

The league I'm familiar with, the schools provide the clock operators. 

[bama_stripes]

The league I'm familiar with, the schools provide the clock operators.

Which makes no sense.  Even our state HS association mandates official COs for varsity games. Penny wise, pound foolish.

That said: Up until a few years ago, the SEC had the COs work on the home team sideline.  They then allowed them to be in the press box.  Unfortunately, at my hometown stadium the CO booth is in the corner of one end zone (midfield boxes are for the 1%), and it’s really hard to see the other end of the field.

[Grant - AR]

Which makes no sense.  Even our state HS association mandates official COs for varsity games. Penny wise, pound foolish.

That said: Up until a few years ago, the SEC had the COs work on the home team sideline.  They then allowed them to be in the press box.  Unfortunately, at my hometown stadium the CO booth is in the corner of one end zone (midfield boxes are for the 1%), and it’s really hard to see the other end of the field.

I think the supervisor didn't see the value in having an alternate at the game with 8 officials.  Plus, he told the schools he was going to save them X number of dollars so he could remind them of that when he went and asked for raises for the officials. 

When the SEC took the alternate/clock operators off the sideline, they told the schools to provide their own clock operators.  The only clock operator I know is a recently retired on-field SEC official so it's someone who knows the rules and will do the job right.  I can't speak for the other 15 schools because I don't know who they have, but I would hope they would all have similar people running the clocks.