Definition Of A Catch

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tjgopher said:
Kind of.

The Referee of that crew yesterday lives in Hutchinson, Minnesota and grew up a Gopher fan. But, he has only been a Referee of a crew for a short time. Before that, he was part of a Big Ten crew as the Field Judge and who was assigned big games, including national title games.

The Back Judge on yesterday's crew who blew the play dead is a former Iowa wide receiver, who has also worked big games.

But, this crew - as a whole - has not worked BCS game as a unit.
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I see. He probably had black and yellow underwear.
 


Totally a catch, totally a fumble. Should have been out ball down at their 30.
 

The only thing I can think of is that they didn't think the receiver had the ball securely long enough before it was dislodged. Because clearly he had taken enough steps to constitute a football move.
 

Think it wa and should have been ruled a catch.

I think we got the benefit of a call like this against Michigan State a few years ago.
 


mcgi0024 said:
You won't get a clarification on the call because the correct response would look like this: "The call should have been ruled a catch and a fumble with Minnesota having the opportunity to advance the change in possession. Since we blew the whistle and didn't want to look stupid for having to spot the ball back at the 2 we stubbornly saved faced by sticking to our bad call."


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Those were my exact thought as it was happening. The ref that blew it dead was totally wrong to do that after Thompson had run that far. You either blow it as an incompletion right away or let Thompson go the distance. Of course, the onus for overturning the call goes the other way if that were to happen, but I always hate it when the ref swallows his whistle until the guy is at mid-field and then thinks "Hey! Wait a minute!"

I absolutely think it was a fumble and it was the oddest (and probably worst) call on a day with a lot of questionable calls (that went both ways). I actually thought Cockran got back on-side, but Appleby probably doesn't throw the ball where he did if there hadn't been a flag.
 

tjgopher said:
Kind of.

The Referee of that crew yesterday lives in Hutchinson, Minnesota and grew up a Gopher fan. But, he has only been a Referee of a crew for a short time. Before that, he was part of a Big Ten crew as the Field Judge and who was assigned big games, including national title games.

The Back Judge on yesterday's crew who blew the play dead is a former Iowa wide receiver, who has also worked big games.

But, this crew - as a whole - has not worked BCS game as a unit.
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Your right I forgot that he had switched crews.
 


After this missed call, the energy was gone from the crowd and that lasted through the halftime. That's what impressed me the most from this football team. They were able to put that miserable second quarter behind them and come out with a great second half.
 



Some guy said:
I don't think it was a catch. If you watch it in regular speed and not slow motion it is a bang bang play. I don't think it would have been a bad call either way. Close play, judgement call.
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I agree and think Chuck Long did a nice job explaining it. The ball is sliding down a bit and is at the WR's waist. Bang, bang play. One that if called a fumble on the field may have stayed that way. The Back Judge was very strong in his call.

A couple things I noticed today when I watched the game was Wells coming off the bench in Thompson's defense. Never a good play, lucky he didn't get ejected.

We also got a break on the potential roughing the punter that they said he tipped the ball.
 

Good point about the roughing the punter. The refs must have heard a noise that indicated a hand slapping the ball, because the ball traveled like it was untouched.

I thought Cobb's fumble was a bogus call as well though. His progress had stopped much earlier and while maybe no whistle was blown, it looked like he had made contact with the ground already before losing the ball.
 

I usually don't like to let BAD calls go (especially watching Green Bay vs Minnesota and the infinite terrible officiating that brings), but...
we won, arguing or discussing this isn't going to reverse the call or change the outcome of the game.

We still won, were still 6-1 and in sole possession of first place. #skiUmah
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I agree and think Chuck Long did a nice job explaining it. The ball is sliding down a bit and is at the WR's waist. Bang, bang play. One that if called a fumble on the field may have stayed that way. The Back Judge was very strong in his call.
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I know that's what Chuck Long said on tv ... a comment that literally had me scratching my head because he's saying the ball is moving at the same time my 1080p big screen tv is showing no movement whatsoever. Just a normal catch, tuck, and turn upfield. You and Chuck must have been watching a private replay.

Bang, bang play, sure, but one they got wrong and replay should've corrected.
 



The ball maybe just ever so slightly fluttered on that punt. He scraped it, barely. I have no idea how he missed it. The replay from the downfield angle showed it best.

I watched the catch and fumble play again just now and the ball did not move. I have no idea what presbyopic, cataract-afflicted Chuck Long, or the Iowa official were looking at.

Cobb's fumble could have gone either way because the camera angles were poor. As a homer it sure looked like the ground caused the fumble on slo-mo replay. But having seen a lot of these types of calls I didn't expect it to be overturned. I would also expect if they had ruled it down by contact it wouldn't have been overturned.
 


MaxyJR1 said:
I think Chuck Long did a nice job explaining it.
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He did? I thought he didn't. He started by saying it would be overturned, that it was a catch and fumble. Then he hedged on it. Then the play by play guy said it was a catch, then he flip flopped on it. Then Long was back to saying it was a catch, then the ref announced that the call stood and the play by play guy gave props to Long for having it right, when I don't think he ever said it was a fumble for sure. I may have to go back and watch it again. For sure, they had it as a catch when they watched it first.



MaxyJR1 said:
The Back Judge was very strong in his call.
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Chuck Long used to throw that Back Judge touchdown passes in Big Ten college football games for a team that made the Rose Bowl, so he may have been sticking up for his pal once he realized who blew the whistle.
 

Plays like this drive me nuts. The refs blow the play dead, only after the ball is scooped and run back 40-50 yards.

This whole 'catch - not a catch' discussion happens way too much in a modern football game with multiple camera angles, high definition, super slo-motion, etc. And they still get it wrong way too often. People know a catch when they see one. Ever since the Calvin Johnson GW TD was taken away vs. the Bears due to the 'process of the catch', it makes me want to just do away with this modern 'convenience' to speed the game along and avoid further bursting of blood vessels in my head.
 

Gopher028 said:
I usually don't like to let BAD calls go (especially watching Green Bay vs Minnesota and the infinite terrible officiating that brings), but...
we won, arguing or discussing this isn't going to reverse the call or change the outcome of the game.

We still won, were still 6-1 and in sole possession of first place. #skiUmah
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If you want to avoid discussion about a significant play in a game, a message board probably isn't the best spot for you. Maybe you should just refresh the Big Ten Standings page over and over all week to tell you all you need to know.
 

Gopher Bandanna Guy said:
Plays like this drive me nuts. The refs blow the play dead, only after the ball is scooped and run back 40-50 yards.

This whole 'catch - not a catch' discussion happens way too much in a modern football game with multiple camera angles, high definition, super slo-motion, etc. And they still get it wrong way too often. People know a catch when they see one. Ever since the Calvin Johnson GW TD was taken away vs. the Bears due to the 'process of the catch', it makes me want to just do away with this modern 'convenience' to speed the game along and avoid further bursting of blood vessels in my head.
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I agree. They have muddied the waters to much on these plays. If a bar full of fans can figure it out on TV better than a former official, they need a new system. They need to clean up the rule on catch/no-catch. The annoying part of the Cobb fumble was that the radio guys kept saying that the view in the stadium which showed him down was an in-house camera and not available to the replay official. Now, how much sense does that make?
 

MaxyJR1 said:
The annoying part of the Cobb fumble was that the radio guys kept saying that the view in the stadium which showed him down was an in-house camera and not available to the replay official. Now, how much sense does that make?
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Didn't realize that, wow that is frustrating. How can you not use all lines of evidence present if you are truly intent on 'getting the call right'?
 

Gopher Bandanna Guy said:
Didn't realize that, wow that is frustrating. How can you not use all lines of evidence present if you are truly intent on 'getting the call right'?
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There's a few things here:
1. It was an obvious catch and fumble. This was the worst non-overturn by replay I've ever seen, and I can't even remember something close. Usually, there's at least some shade of gray - ball with a slight bobble, only 1 1/2 steps, something that could lead to an inexplicable non-overturn - but on this play there was nothing. At this point, I was wondering what the grounds were for playing a game under protest. Not that I would've even advocated doing so, but I was so exasperated because...
2. This came only a few plays after the "fumble" by Cobb that also should've been overturned. Now here, I wasn't quite as irate as even though the stadium replay showed the ball coming out because A. it was in the middle of players with mostly bad camera angles B. it's possible the ball was wiggling slightly before Cobb's elbow hit the turf (couldn't really see it or not on the board).
3. What's with the 3 illegal formation penalties on XPs (2 on us, 1 on Purdue)? This is like the 3 illegal linemen downfield calls last week. Illegal formation is something you could pretty much call on just about every XP/FG if you wanted to. Moreover, the XP is a near-automatic play. Re-running it just allows for injuries. Stupid, stupid, point of emphasis if that's what it was. Yes, yes, we should've made the XP from 5 yards back, but seriously, we shouldn't have had to.
4. The "fumble" by Leidner that did get overturned on replay was ludicrous. Leidner almost had 2 knees down the ball came out so late. Thankfully the booth got this one right, but it shouldn't have gone that far.

This was the worst reffed game I can remember. They pay these guys but they weren't even watching close enough on at least 3 key plays to correctly identify a fumble or not, and then the ridiculous emphasis on formation on XPs. What a joke. Thank goodness we won or I'd really be pissed.
 

Speaking of replays. I would be interested to know if anyone else felt Mostert from Purdue may have fumbled on that 69 yard run where he was tackled on the 1 yard line. The refs did review the play, but the TV announcers paid the replay very little attention, and the only views we were shown on TV were pretty poor angles. But, I rewound one of those angles multiple times, and it certainly looked to me like the ball was moving/ starting to move before he went to the ground. It would have been pretty clear if there were any sort of angle from the Purdue sideline, but one was either not available or just not shown on TV. Did they replay that at the game at all?
 

MaroonGold1 said:
Speaking of replays. I would be interested to know if anyone else felt Mostert from Purdue may have fumbled on that 69 yard run where he was tackled on the 1 yard line. The refs did review the play, but the TV announcers paid the replay very little attention, and the only views we were shown on TV were pretty poor angles. But, I rewound one of those angles multiple times, and it certainly looked to me like the ball was moving/ starting to move before he went to the ground. It would have been pretty clear if there were any sort of angle from the Purdue sideline, but one was either not available or just not shown on TV. Did they replay that at the game at all?
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I thought that initially as well, but when replayed on TV, I don't think there was enough there to rule it a fumble.
 

Golden Elephant said:
There's a few things here:
1. It was an obvious catch and fumble. This was the worst non-overturn by replay I've ever seen, and I can't even remember something close. Usually, there's at least some shade of gray - ball with a slight bobble, only 1 1/2 steps, something that could lead to an inexplicable non-overturn - but on this play there was nothing. At this point, I was wondering what the grounds were for playing a game under protest. Not that I would've even advocated doing so, but I was so exasperated because...
2. This came only a few plays after the "fumble" by Cobb that also should've been overturned. Now here, I wasn't quite as irate as even though the stadium replay showed the ball coming out because A. it was in the middle of players with mostly bad camera angles B. it's possible the ball was wiggling slightly before Cobb's elbow hit the turf (couldn't really see it or not on the board).
3. What's with the 3 illegal formation penalties on XPs (2 on us, 1 on Purdue)? This is like the 3 illegal linemen downfield calls last week. Illegal formation is something you could pretty much call on just about every XP/FG if you wanted to. Moreover, the XP is a near-automatic play. Re-running it just allows for injuries. Stupid, stupid, point of emphasis if that's what it was. Yes, yes, we should've made the XP from 5 yards back, but seriously, we shouldn't have had to.
4. The "fumble" by Leidner that did get overturned on replay was ludicrous. Leidner almost had 2 knees down the ball came out so late. Thankfully the booth got this one right, but it shouldn't have gone that far.

This was the worst reffed game I can remember. They pay these guys but they weren't even watching close enough on at least 3 key plays to correctly identify a fumble or not, and then the ridiculous emphasis on formation on XPs. What a joke. Thank goodness we won or I'd really be pissed.
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I am not sure how to post it on here, but I snapped a picture on my phone of that Gophers illegal formation on the PAT. It was a horrendous call, they called it on the Left tackle I believe for being in the backfield, but if he was maybe half a yard back, not nearly as far back as most offensive lineman are on regular plays from scrimmage. Like you said, a very odd thing to make a point of emphasis.

Also, if you are rewatching the game, or have it on DVR, take a look at Purdue's fullback on their 1st TD, a BLATANT false start was missed.
 

Gopher Bandanna Guy said:
I thought that initially as well, but when replayed on TV, I don't think there was enough there to rule it a fumble.
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Definitely not enough to reverse it with the angles shown on TV, but if there was a camera on the Purdue side of the field I am pretty sure you would see a fumble.. .
 

Secondly, back to the OP's topic. How come TV commentators don't know what constitutes a catch? In the NFL, there's these endless debates and then the TV guys explain that now, the receiver has to have possession all the way through the catch to the ground. It can hit the ground, but if it then wobbles in the player's hands, it's no catch, etc. And on and on.

Does the NCAA follow the NFL's definitions on this? Or is there no uniform NCAA rule on this and it's conference-by-conference or officiating crew-by-crew?

If anyone watched the Michigan-Rutgers game a couple weeks ago, at the end Michigan had 3rd & 10 or something at Rutgers' 37. They threw a sideline pass, the guy caught it and turned upfield and reached the football out for the marker and dove to the ground where the ball came out (would've been a 1st down, instead they tried the 55-yd FG that got blocked). Glen Mason & the other commentator thought the incomplete call would be overturned because he had made a football move. The booth inexplicably didn't even review it. Michigan had to call TO, then challenge (as is the case in NCAA). Then the call stood (I think they may have even said was confirmed). It seemed like it should've been a catch to me (and the TV guys). It's weird - where can we get clarity on this?

Then last week, we had the NW guy catch the ball against us on the ground on 3rd or 4th & 10 and Murray or someone knocked it out of his hands a half-second later. Ruled incomplete on the field, but overturned by the booth. I guess they said he had it and then the play was over since he was on the ground, but... I just about guarantee that if he was standing it would've been ruled an incomplete pass rather than a fumble. So it's kind of bogus - what's the standard?
 

MaroonGold1 said:
If you want to avoid discussion about a significant play in a game, a message board probably isn't the best spot for you. Maybe you should just refresh the Big Ten Standings page over and over all week to tell you all you need to know.
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Well, I just might......I just might. Care to join me?
 

MaroonGold1 said:
I am not sure how to post it on here, but I snapped a picture on my phone of that Gophers illegal formation on the PAT. It was a horrendous call, they called it on the Left tackle I believe for being in the backfield, but if he was maybe half a yard back, not nearly as far back as most offensive lineman are on regular plays from scrimmage. Like you said, a very odd thing to make a point of emphasis.

Also, if you are rewatching the game, or have it on DVR, take a look at Purdue's fullback on their 1st TD, a BLATANT false start was missed.
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Thank you! I said this at the time but completely forgot about it until now. The guy had a full head of steam going forward before the ball was even snapped!
 

What is interesting is that without review basically every close call would have gone against the gophers. All we can rely on replay is to correct about 50% of the clearly wrong calls, anything close they won't touch. Makes me wonder if our coaches or players are doing something that is predisposing the refs to want to lean in the other teams favor.
 

Golden Elephant said:
There's a few things here:
1. It was an obvious catch and fumble. This was the worst non-overturn by replay I've ever seen, and I can't even remember something close. Usually, there's at least some shade of gray - ball with a slight bobble, only 1 1/2 steps, something that could lead to an inexplicable non-overturn - but on this play there was nothing. At this point, I was wondering what the grounds were for playing a game under protest. Not that I would've even advocated doing so, but I was so exasperated because...
2. This came only a few plays after the "fumble" by Cobb that also should've been overturned. Now here, I wasn't quite as irate as even though the stadium replay showed the ball coming out because A. it was in the middle of players with mostly bad camera angles B. it's possible the ball was wiggling slightly before Cobb's elbow hit the turf (couldn't really see it or not on the board).
3. What's with the 3 illegal formation penalties on XPs (2 on us, 1 on Purdue)? This is like the 3 illegal linemen downfield calls last week. Illegal formation is something you could pretty much call on just about every XP/FG if you wanted to. Moreover, the XP is a near-automatic play. Re-running it just allows for injuries. Stupid, stupid, point of emphasis if that's what it was. Yes, yes, we should've made the XP from 5 yards back, but seriously, we shouldn't have had to.
4. The "fumble" by Leidner that did get overturned on replay was ludicrous. Leidner almost had 2 knees down the ball came out so late. Thankfully the booth got this one right, but it shouldn't have gone that far.

This was the worst reffed game I can remember. They pay these guys but they weren't even watching close enough on at least 3 key plays to correctly identify a fumble or not, and then the ridiculous emphasis on formation on XPs. What a joke. Thank goodness we won or I'd really be pissed.
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A month ago, I never would've written what I'm about to write here now. But it was on Gopherhole that I read a thread about how it was fairly obvious to many people (including JERRY KILL HIMSELF, who stated that he had a pretty good notion why the schedules were designed the way they were this year by the Big Ten) that the Big Ten had come up with a schedule that apparently favored Ohio State or some other team (can't remember the details) so that they could represent our conference in the National Championship playoff.

Why would it be so far-fetched then to believe that the Big Ten has gone one step further by telling referees to do their best to ensure that certain teams win and other teams don't. Given the excellent review by Gopher Elephant above, it seems sort of obvious to me that something strange was going on in the officiating on Saturday. I don't believe I'm one to subscribe to conspiracy theories, and I've been called naive on several occasions in this life, so it takes alot to get me to believe that the higher ups in the world would cheat with something this meaningless in the grand scheme of national affairs.

I'm dying to know. How many of you out there believe that the Big Ten had somehow, in some way, communicated to the referees of Saturday's game that they didn't want Minnesota to win? Now that I write this, it seems sort of stupid to me. It's probably more likely that the Big Ten officials don't even consider Minnesota a legitimate threat to win much. And, maybe they couldn't care less who wins what in Big Ten football.
 

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