BleedGopher
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Per Steppe:
Cooper DeJean’s invalid fair catch — the infamous one in Iowa’s loss to Minnesota — has stayed fresh in the minds of many from the Hawkeye State.
“I still think it wasn’t a fair catch,” DeJean said earlier this year while at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.
A few months later and a few blocks south of where DeJean made those comments, the Big Ten has been singing a different tune when looking back at the influential call — one that was made by the replay official upstairs.
“Once any waving happens, the ball is going to be dead,” said Bill Carollo, the Big Ten’s coordinator of football officials, at the conference’s media days.
It was a “standard rule that’s reviewable,” Carollo said, and the replay official “properly” overturned the initial call and ruled it an invalid fair catch.
DeJean was pointing with his right arm while appearing to wave below shoulder level with his left arm, perhaps to make sure the rest of the return team stayed away from the bouncing punt. (After all, Iowa suffered a turnover earlier in the season when a punt went off the back of one of the other players on the return unit.)
“You can point, but you can’t point one arm and then wave the other way to get away,” Carollo said.
Carollo said “we’ve called it before.” Before, however, usually doesn’t affect a potential game-winning touchdown in a heated rivalry. That’s not to mention the job implications for Brian Ferentz, considering it was his last game before finding out he would not be retained after the 2023 season.
“We let it go through, and of course, the results were a touchdown,” Carollo said. “So then that looks like, ‘Who’s making this call? And why are you making that call two minutes after the touchdown?’”
Carollo has watched the play “a lot of times from a lot of different angles” and did make a mea culpa. It’s not the mea culpa many Hawkeye fans want to hear, though.
“What we didn’t do properly was the back judge, the person covering the return man, when he caught that ball, the whistle should have been blown dead, and the play was over,” Carollo said.
Had the back judge done that (and stopped the touchdown play from even starting to unfold), “we wouldn’t have the conversation.”
www.thegazette.com
Go Gophers!!
Cooper DeJean’s invalid fair catch — the infamous one in Iowa’s loss to Minnesota — has stayed fresh in the minds of many from the Hawkeye State.
“I still think it wasn’t a fair catch,” DeJean said earlier this year while at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.
A few months later and a few blocks south of where DeJean made those comments, the Big Ten has been singing a different tune when looking back at the influential call — one that was made by the replay official upstairs.
“Once any waving happens, the ball is going to be dead,” said Bill Carollo, the Big Ten’s coordinator of football officials, at the conference’s media days.
It was a “standard rule that’s reviewable,” Carollo said, and the replay official “properly” overturned the initial call and ruled it an invalid fair catch.
DeJean was pointing with his right arm while appearing to wave below shoulder level with his left arm, perhaps to make sure the rest of the return team stayed away from the bouncing punt. (After all, Iowa suffered a turnover earlier in the season when a punt went off the back of one of the other players on the return unit.)
“You can point, but you can’t point one arm and then wave the other way to get away,” Carollo said.
Carollo said “we’ve called it before.” Before, however, usually doesn’t affect a potential game-winning touchdown in a heated rivalry. That’s not to mention the job implications for Brian Ferentz, considering it was his last game before finding out he would not be retained after the 2023 season.
“We let it go through, and of course, the results were a touchdown,” Carollo said. “So then that looks like, ‘Who’s making this call? And why are you making that call two minutes after the touchdown?’”
Carollo has watched the play “a lot of times from a lot of different angles” and did make a mea culpa. It’s not the mea culpa many Hawkeye fans want to hear, though.
“What we didn’t do properly was the back judge, the person covering the return man, when he caught that ball, the whistle should have been blown dead, and the play was over,” Carollo said.
Had the back judge done that (and stopped the touchdown play from even starting to unfold), “we wouldn’t have the conversation.”
What Big Ten would do same, differently on infamous invalid fair catch call
If a play like Cooper DeJean’s invalid fair catch — the infamous one in Iowa’s loss to Minnesota — happens again in 2024 the final say will go to the Big Ten’s new replay center in Chicago rather than the replay official at the stadium.
www.thegazette.com
Go Gophers!!
