Some in Delaware will not let it go....
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110123/SPORTS07/101230344&theme=SPORTSOPINIONTresolini: NCAA should admit mistakes
By KEVIN TRESOLINI • The News Journal • January 23, 2011
It has now been 16 days since the fiasco in Frisco, where an apparent act of incompetence contributed to the University of Delaware's loss of an NCAA football championship.
Some may not want to hear or confirm that, for fear it tarnishes the title won 20-19 by Eastern Washington that Friday night in Texas.
Make no mistake, the Eagles were worthy winners, making plays and defensive stops with impressive passion and precision in the game's decisive final 18 minutes while erasing a 19-0 UD advantage. They are to be saluted.
But the NCAA, an organization that prides itself on fairness and equity, and has voluminous rulebooks to ensure such, needs to come clean.
Many are certainly tired of hearing about what will forever be known locally as "The Spot," which is understandable. Yet, it needs to be addressed so it never, ever, happens again.
Eastern Washington is NCAA champion. Delaware is not. So be it. The Blue Hens had their chances.
But they also had an apparent fourth-down defensive stop on a fourth-and-1 run by Eastern's Mario Brown at the UD 23-yard line with 3:26 left. Officials initially spotted the ball in a place that, after a measurement, gave the Eagles a first down. They moved the chains. But the spot was reviewed. The football was moved back.
And here is where things happened that undermine the NCAA and its operation of the Division I-AA title game.
Officials called for the chains to come out to measure for a first down. But the small disc, which is clipped to the chain at a major yard line -- one ending in a '0' or a '5' -- and, therefore, ensures exact placement when a measurement is made on the field, had, inexplicably, been removed from the chain. Exact placement of the chains was impossible.
Sideline witnesses, who included Delaware coaches, players and some former players, said the chain crew was telling the referees, "We can't re-spot the chains." The Southern Conference crew brought them out anyway.
The referees, in an NCAA championship game, just guessed on the placement of the chains. They guessed wrong.
TV replays show the 10-yard chain stretching to the edge of the 22 on the goal-line side as the previous series is being run. When re-spotted, the football did not appear to reach that far. But when the chains were brought out the second time, they only reached the side of the 22 toward the 50.
Eastern Washington was given a first down and scored three plays later, then thwarted a Delaware possession to preserve its one-point lead.
So why did the chain crew remove the clip, and why didn't the replay official correct the mistake caused by the misplaced chains?
The 10-yard chain is supposed to have two clips, as one is left on from the previous series just in case officials need to go back, said Rogers Redding, the NCAA's national coordinator for football officiating. It rarely happens, he added, but did in the Delaware-Eastern Washington title game, and he said, "added a level of uncertainty."
No one has been able to explain why the clip was removed or if the crew was using just one instead of the proper two, leading some to believe the chain gang, made up of Southland and Big 12 conference officials, was not qualified to work the game. Dennis Poppe, NCAA vice president for football and baseball, said it was a qualified crew and had also worked the Big 12 championship game.
Byron Boston, coordinator of officials for the Southland Conference, also said it was an able crew but wouldn't answer how such an elementary mistake could occur in regard to the clip.
While referring inquiries to the NCAA, Boston didn't seem to appreciate being questioned and grew defensive when pressed about issues such as the number of clips required on the chains. He even fired out this gem: "I'm an official in the NFL. Do you know what that is?"
Yes, it's a league that admits to its mistakes.
As for the replay booth being able to help with the chain placement, replay official Don Kapral of the Big 12 kindly deferred to the NCAA. Poppe said the replay official's job is "to determine forward progress," but not placement of the chains.
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It has now been 16 days since the fiasco in Frisco, where an apparent act of incompetence contributed to the University of Delaware's loss of an NCAA football championship.
Some may not want to hear or confirm that, for fear it tarnishes the title won 20-19 by Eastern Washington that Friday night in Texas.
Make no mistake, the Eagles were worthy winners, making plays and defensive stops with impressive passion and precision in the game's decisive final 18 minutes while erasing a 19-0 UD advantage. They are to be saluted.
But the NCAA, an organization that prides itself on fairness and equity, and has voluminous rulebooks to ensure such, needs to come clean.
Many are certainly tired of hearing about what will forever be known locally as "The Spot," which is understandable. Yet, it needs to be addressed so it never, ever, happens again.
Eastern Washington is NCAA champion. Delaware is not. So be it. The Blue Hens had their chances.
But they also had an apparent fourth-down defensive stop on a fourth-and-1 run by Eastern's Mario Brown at the UD 23-yard line with 3:26 left. Officials initially spotted the ball in a place that, after a measurement, gave the Eagles a first down. They moved the chains. But the spot was reviewed. The football was moved back.
And here is where things happened that undermine the NCAA and its operation of the Division I-AA title game.
Officials called for the chains to come out to measure for a first down. But the small disc, which is clipped to the chain at a major yard line -- one ending in a '0' or a '5' -- and, therefore, ensures exact placement when a measurement is made on the field, had, inexplicably, been removed from the chain. Exact placement of the chains was impossible.
Sideline witnesses, who included Delaware coaches, players and some former players, said the chain crew was telling the referees, "We can't re-spot the chains." The Southern Conference crew brought them out anyway.
The referees, in an NCAA championship game, just guessed on the placement of the chains. They guessed wrong.
TV replays show the 10-yard chain stretching to the edge of the 22 on the goal-line side as the previous series is being run. When re-spotted, the football did not appear to reach that far. But when the chains were brought out the second time, they only reached the side of the 22 toward the 50.
Eastern Washington was given a first down and scored three plays later, then thwarted a Delaware possession to preserve its one-point lead.
So why did the chain crew remove the clip, and why didn't the replay official correct the mistake caused by the misplaced chains?
The 10-yard chain is supposed to have two clips, as one is left on from the previous series just in case officials need to go back, said Rogers Redding, the NCAA's national coordinator for football officiating. It rarely happens, he added, but did in the Delaware-Eastern Washington title game, and he said, "added a level of uncertainty."
No one has been able to explain why the clip was removed or if the crew was using just one instead of the proper two, leading some to believe the chain gang, made up of Southland and Big 12 conference officials, was not qualified to work the game. Dennis Poppe, NCAA vice president for football and baseball, said it was a qualified crew and had also worked the Big 12 championship game.
Byron Boston, coordinator of officials for the Southland Conference, also said it was an able crew but wouldn't answer how such an elementary mistake could occur in regard to the clip.
While referring inquiries to the NCAA, Boston didn't seem to appreciate being questioned and grew defensive when pressed about issues such as the number of clips required on the chains. He even fired out this gem: "I'm an official in the NFL. Do you know what that is?"
Yes, it's a league that admits to its mistakes.
As for the replay booth being able to help with the chain placement, replay official Don Kapral of the Big 12 kindly deferred to the NCAA. Poppe said the replay official's job is "to determine forward progress," but not placement of the chains.
Redding concurred, saying location of the yard markers is "not something that's formally reviewable.'' But, he added, nothing prevents a replay official from making an observation and relaying it to officials.
Nick Trainer, the Big East replay official who worked the quarterfinal and semifinal games at Delaware, confirmed that even when something is deemed "not reviewable," the replay official is permitted to correct what he terms an "egregious" error.
A longtime NFL referee who spoke to The News Journal, and asked that his name not be used because of his association with the league, said the replay booth should have informed field officials not to bring the chains out for the initial measurement, before the spot of the ball was reviewed.
He added that on-field officials' unfamiliarity with replay review, used only in I-AA during the playoffs, likely contributed to the mix-ups.
Delaware coach K.C. Keeler, who watched videotape with Poppe, Colonial Athletic Association officials and others immediately after the title game, is still seething over what he feels is an injustice.
"If this was Oregon-Auburn," Keeler said of the BCS title game, which is not even an NCAA-run event, "nobody would be sweeping it under the carpet."
Poppe confirms there were "some procedural issues that are of a concern" to the NCAA, including the removal of the clip.
"It was an unfortunate situation," he said.
Even the original incorrect placement of the football, Keeler pointed out, was made by an official whose view of its precise location was obscured rather than by the official who had the proper vision and positioning. Had that been done properly, he said, it's possible none of the subsequent succession of errors would have occurred.
Poppe pointed out that spotting the football is "not an exact science," which is true.
It's also a game of inches, which furthers speculation about what should and shouldn't be a first down. It was almost too close to call. Having viewed videotape himself, Redding felt the football in its re-spotted location would probably have been a first down if the chains had been properly placed.
The TV replays I saw indicate otherwise. But again, that's not really the point here.
When there is an officiating error in the NFL, the league will make a statement confirming such.
The NCAA needs to fess up in regard to what is supposed to be one of its signature championship events, not to alter the outcome, but to help ensure it never happens again.
