ACC reverses field after intense criticism: Bradham hit was legal

reminds me of the game when it took 5 mins to rule it an incomplete pass, not a fumble…

I dont know about you guys, but I smell blood in the water on tobacco rd. I hope Rhoads gets fired and officials learn the lesson to call a good game against fsu, or risk losing your job.

for ruining our chances at numerical symmetry. 23-13. That would’ve left 62-10 and 38-7 for the Cavs and Gates.

#A-holes

apparently the ACC is now saying we have to spot UVA a touchdown because of the Stanford Samuels hit.

It’s taken this long because of the reviews and subsequent overturns.

Dear ACC,

We’ll continue to call out your dishonesty. You won’t win. Ever. So, next time you want to send your lap dog Doug Rhoads out to defend a bad call and lie about it, realize that we live in an era of DVRs, youtube, ebays, and interwebs. We’ve already reviewed the video thousands of times, from every angle, and read every bit of the rule book. Your expertise in Monday is no longer required. We just expect honesty.

Oh, and don’t make us order the ACC office pizza and Chinese food. We can do that, too.

Warmest Regards,

All of Us

Now don’t go postal and blow up about all the other bad calls, etc. I watched the same game and all the rest of the FSU games this year. I watch 5-6 games every Saturday for conferences all over the country. Believe me there is plenty of missed/bad calls to go around in all conferences. I am not addressing all those or even the ejection call as bad as it was. The root here is the first part of the call that led to the ejection call. If you fix that, then the ejection call never happens, INT and game changes all the way around.

Now that being said, I have a friend who is an ACC official and a great guy. We had a good discussion about this call yesterday and he made some good points from their perspective-

The major part of this problem is that the rule takes almost all of the choice out of the officials hands. The rule is worded so that it makes it a “if the defensive player might be even slightly possibly be guilty, then the official must throw the flag and the player is automatically guilty and must be punished to the full extent with no possibility of review or over turn of the call!” The wording in the rule forces the officials into the position of having to call the foul even if they are not sure it actually happened and they cannot stop it or undo it once called and it is all based on a play that took place in less than one second real time.

I have seen this foul used correctly several times this year on truly defenseless players – anyone see the hits on the Stanford WR that is now out for probably the rest of the year? I have also seen this very call go this same way it did Saturday in Tallahassee (minus the ejection) at least 4 times I can immediately cite this year. In the ACC, PAC12, Big12 and SEC. So this is not an ACC issue! This is an NCAA issue! In all 4 of the instances I recall, the hit resulted in a turnover that was given back to the offense and thus surely impacted the outcome of the game. In one instance the WR caught the ball on a crossing route and was running toward a LB that dropped to hit the WR below the waist. The WR tried to stop and his feet slipped out from under him forward and he was falling backwards. The LB did hit the WR helmet to helmet in a very hard hit. resulting in a fumble recovered by the defense. But that hit took place about 2-3 feet off the ground, not 5-6 feet. Looked very bad in real time and at the time I just I knew it was an illegal flagrant hit and should have been flagged and I think every official on the field threw a flag. But slow motion replay revealed it was as I described and the PAC12 office also confirmed such on the following Monday. Sound familiar?

As a lover of the game and acoach, I do like the rule and we should protect the players! I personally do not like to see defensive players make big hits like this without wrapping up the offensive player. I do not teach my players to make a tackle in such a way that can leave the defensive player standing and the offensive player on the ground. If Nigel makes the hit just as hard and wraps the guy up and tackles him, I really doubt you see the flag. In fact I have not ever seen this flag on a hit where the defensive player wrapped up the offensive player. I have only seen it on a big hit without the wrap up.

The real root problem here is with the implementation of this rule and the lack of choice the wording of the rule gives to officials. Then it compounds the issue with the complete inability to stop and review the call and get it right at the time it happens. This is an NCAA rule, not ACC/SEC/BIG12/PAC12. The NCAA has screwed this up and it needs to be corrected in the off-season by making it a reviewable call with the same requirements as any reviewable call. I am not saying every flag should be reviewable, just this one. This call is never a minor issue and is always a bang-bang play that can change a game. The NCAA and every fan should want the players protected, but it should never have been implemented in a way that does not provide a process to ensure it is the right call!