Picture Pages: Was It a Catch?

(One from Fritz Crisler.)  And another from me makes 10,002.

I kind of agree with what you're saying, but I think the video provides clear evidence it was trapped.  The nose of the ball hits the ground and then shifts into a more secure position between the receiver's arms.  Is that not trapped?

I felt it was a catch.
Howeva.
It was NOT a catch according to the rules.
It's like the golden bobcats complaints that everyone was doing it.
Things are what the rules say they are.
The golden bobcats are cheaters. The hokies are losers. They lost because they did not catch the ball.

I would have no problem with a rule that makes a play exactly like Coale's a catch, but that's not the rule right now.  The refs can't go by anything else. 

I doubt the rule has changed since instant replay was installed, but the number of angles, 3D, HD, 360 shots, all of these different kinds of analysis have completely changed the way it is enforced, thereby basically changing the definition to an unascertainable degree of "completion."   You can't find a catch like that where a player has 100% control of the football.  If you are going to call it like that, rhe rule should say "No portion of the ball can be touching the ground."  That is how it is called right now.

I was about to post the exact same point.  Was it indisputably not a catch?  Apparently the refs thought so after review, and I'm really glad they did, but... not so sure.  Although the last animated gif makes a very strong argument that the refs got it right.

Of course, I think that it was about as good a catch as the called-back INT that VT had in the third quarter(?), and if that one wasn't good enough, then this one wasn't good enough either, so at least they were consistent.

As a practical matter, you're going to go nuts if you actually bank on rules being enforced literally in sporting events.  We all know that there's holding on every play, just like there's traveling on every possession in the NBA.  By now, replay has been around long enough that we all know "indisputable video evidence" means something less than its literal meaning when applied to replay reviews.  It's true that this leads to some degree of ambiguity - what is this particular crew's standard of sufficiency for overturning a call? - but that's the way it is.

That standard is misinterpreted to be a nod toward "let the refs referee." What "indisputable evidence" means is you have to see something in the video that is evidenciary and indisputable, e.g. the ball not being between Coale's forearms and moving a lot after it hits the ground.

"Indisputable evidence" is fine as a good standard for the refs. But when you argue it as a fan, what you're saying is "I know the call was botched, but only the most egregiously botched calls should be overturned." That reasoning puts the sanctity of the original call over what you saw happen on the video. You're shifting the definition of a "catch" from what we can all agree on (possession before the ball hits the ground) to a moving standard of how obvious it needs to be on review before the bad call is reversed.

The rule is there to make sure they can't reverse a call that they can't see. In this case they could see it, you can see it above, and therefore we can all agree that it happened unless we're Internet Hokie fans or haters. The reviewer, by overturning the call, tacitly said that this one met the "Indisputable Evidence" standard. A position that the standard for "indisputable" should be higher regardless of what happened on the field is putting the officiating ahead of the play on the field, which is the opposite of the goal of having review.

You're confusing "indisputable" with "uncontroversial" - which is facially absurd because generally calls don't need to get reviewed if they're obvious.



There is indisputable video evidence that the ball hit the ground and moved when it did so. Their is great video and the replay official has everything he needed to make the call. The only controversy is over whether the receiver had "firm control". But that rule is by nature subjective - two referees could reasonably disagree on the definition of firm control. We're not arguing about the facts of the video, we're arguing over how much a ball needs to move upon hitting the ground to be considered uncontrolled.



But note that the video is still "indisputable" - it shows exactly what happened. The call is close, subjective, and therefore controversial, but the video was good enough that the replay official was within his rights to overturn.

Hope you enjoyed St. Louis, UNO

vs Penn State 2005 (IIRC) disagrees

It looks on the replay as if the ball is touching the sideline by the time it can be said to be secured, as is the part of his arm attached to the elbow that landed in the endzone.

What's conclusive to me, though, is that the ball moves incongruently with his body/arms.  It is on it's own path, which means he doesn't have firm control. 

It should move, but I'd firmly grasped it wouldn't move relative to the body. In the GIF, you clearly see the angle of the ball move more toward a horizontal position as it hits the ground, while his back does not change at all and push the ball. So the ball moves relative to his body as well.

So if you land out of bounds, but BOUNCE, and then drag a foot inbounds, the catch is good.  Got it.

Not arguing the out ouf bounds vs. control, but by that poin his shoulders had already slid out of bounds before bouncing.  This picture as proof of catch is absurd.

Don't quote me on this because it may just be the Big Ten's system but to my knowledge college football doesn't have so many standards about what can and can't be reviewed except judgment calls (e.g. pass interference and holding).

The system is best described as a guy upstairs with a DVR who sometimes says "waitaminute I gotta watch that again."