Last play of half lasted 5 seconds?
While I was at the game, the ending to the second half was a mystery to all the people in our section. How did that play last only 5 seconds? Persa held onto the ball for what seemed like a few seconds onto itself. Is this just a homegame scoreboard or what?
October 9th, 2011 at 9:05 AM ^
There were two seconds left when the ball hit the ground. They reviewed it.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^
with the win. If you look at the replay, it seems that it took a second or two before the clock started ticking when the play started.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:23 AM ^
I watched it three time on the DVR. The clock starts well after the play started. NW got away from a lot of holding as well. The Kovac hit at the end is all justification to this. I am not sure if Kovac had his hands on the helmet. But I could be the case even if it was not intentional.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:39 AM ^
#1.... it looked like he got both arms on it, but i don't know if his hands got the mask. More importantly though, they essentially finished the play anyway.... no first down... doesn't matter.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:43 AM ^
I believe that if the defender has his hand inside the helmet it is also considered a facemask penalty.
And it would've been a first down had the penalty been called.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:19 AM ^
It appeared to me that this was the exact definition of a bang-bang play. Kovacs went for the mid-section when tackling and then Persa pulled away. As he was pulling away, he started to go down and Kovacs unintentionally hit his helmet (hard). I believe this is why there was no penalty. There was nothing malicious about the hit.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:24 AM ^
Intention isn't considered... if there's contact like that, it should be a facemask most likely... but it's not like it's a reviewable play. If the ref didn't see it, he can't assume how the helmet popped off. I know it would have been a 1st down, but I guess what I meant was... Although the play was ruled dead once the helmet flew off, we got to see them play it out, and they didn't have an answer... so I don't feel too bad about the non-call.
October 9th, 2011 at 11:13 AM ^
Thanks for the clarification. The intent thing always confuses me. Other than the obvious risk of injury, what keeps a QB from placing his head near the hands of the tackler to draw a head contact penalty whenever it is beneficial?
October 9th, 2011 at 12:25 PM ^
except catastrophic injury.
EDIT: missed your injury mention, but the timing and risk involved make it irrelevant, if you have a split second to put your head in harms way, why not just avoid the hit?
October 9th, 2011 at 9:49 AM ^
I also posted this on the game thread. I took out a stopwatch and timed the play. It took more then 6 seconds.
I believe that this is also what the officials should also do to get rid of any hometown clock keeper bias!
October 9th, 2011 at 12:17 PM ^
Persa did not have his helmet strap secured properly, that's why his helmet poped off. You can see in the replay that he did not touch his helmet at all.
October 9th, 2011 at 3:11 PM ^
That's what I've been saying.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:20 AM ^
because THE DAMN CLOCK DIDN'T START FOR AT LEAST TWO SECONDS AFTER THE BALL WAS SNAPPED. Go back and look. You'll see.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:08 AM ^
The clock was correct at the end of the half. I was watching at home and the ball actually hit the ground with 2 ticks left
October 9th, 2011 at 9:10 AM ^
There were two seconds left when the ball hit the ground. Will have to go back and check but the clock may have started a little late at the snap. Even so there probably would been at least one second left - he held it for a few seconds but it was a short throw.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:27 AM ^
By my recollection there were 2 seconds when he touched it and 1 second when it hit the ground. And then it ran down to 0. I just assumed the clock operator realized he screwed up and that's why he let it run down after it hit the ground. But they clearly didn't review when it started, just when it stopped.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:14 AM ^
We should be thankful that (a) he did not catch that pass and (b) that Fitzgerald decided to coach a bit like Fickell on that end of the half possession....
October 9th, 2011 at 12:42 PM ^
Yeah, I don't know what he was thinking on that drive. That was horrible clock management. They wasted about 10 seconds just standing around before their first and goal play. They could have had another shot at the end zone otherwise.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:15 AM ^
Thanks guys...I was in the endzone and we couldn't believe a play just lasted 5 seconds as usually the clock ticks a second or two after the ball has hit the ground.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:15 AM ^
but the clock stops when the referee signals to stop it. The officiating was horrible in this game and they had no clue what was going on. Having to review that(which I've only seen done in a basketball game) is proof in the pudding.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:17 AM ^
That fourth down when Persa's helmet came off was also a clusterbleep. The whole evening, it seemed at the game that they didn't quite have total control.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:18 AM ^
The return of Spartan bob, only this time he started the clock late.
October 9th, 2011 at 12:46 PM ^
Frank Beckman actually mentioned this on the radio just before halftime. He wondered if MSU's clock operator was doing this game.
Hard to believe that we're just a few weeks away from the 10 year anniversary of that screw job in East Lansing.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:19 AM ^
Remember the Denard to Roundtree pass that beat ND only took 6 seconds and that was a longer pass.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:24 AM ^
watch the BTN replay. There were 2 seconds left when the ball hit the ground. My issue is that I don't know how accurate the BTN was, given their total fail at you know, broadcasting games.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:32 AM ^
It happened a few times on the last drive when they let the clock run a few seconds longer than it shoud have after incompletions. This worked in our favor because they should have had at least 3 more seconds to work with at the end of the half.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^
From snap to ball hitting turf was just under five seconds. Couldn't see the official's signals to the timer, of course.
October 9th, 2011 at 9:50 AM ^
That play was reminsicent of the last play in the 1998 Rose Bowl. The last two seconds ticked off the clock after the play ended. There was clearly some lag on the scoreboards in that game since receivers were 20-30 yards downfield before the clock started. The refs refused to put the time back then and they probably shouldn't have yesterday..
October 9th, 2011 at 8:03 PM ^
That play actually started with two seconds left. There was one second left at the very instant the ball hit the turf and then the final second ticked off as the official whistled it dead.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:12 AM ^
Thankfully it didn't matter. I look at it as retribution for the Penn State game where got an extra second and the Rose Bowl where the clock ticked off with at least a second still on there.
This time it was out turn to suffer at the hands of the clock and we came away ok. I'm ok with it.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:32 AM ^
October 9th, 2011 at 2:17 PM ^
October 9th, 2011 at 8:06 PM ^
What's more, Carr actually signaled for a timeout for a few seconds before the clock was stopped. They put two seconds back on, but it really could have been four.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:33 AM ^
I'm not sure about at the end of half, but it seemed like the play was longer than 6 seconds.
I don't complain about holding by lineman unless it's obvious, so I'm not complaining about many no calls there (there was one on Martin that was obvious and uncalled, but it was on a quick drag route and probably wouldn't have mattered if the lineman held him or not as Persa would have gotten the ball off). There was some pretty bad holding by the WR on the bubbles that NW was running that was making me angry.
At the same time Kovacs should have been called for either a facemask (it looked like he grabbed the facemask) or a blow to the head. I hate the blow to the head rule in situations like this (what is the defender supposed to do when the QB ducks like that at the last second?) but it is the rule.
On the next third down for Michigan they clearly got away with a false start too. So I think it was just a bad performance all around by officials.
October 9th, 2011 at 10:49 AM ^
when they had to adjust the game clock from 9 sec, to 8 sec
October 9th, 2011 at 11:49 AM ^
probably reacted too slowly when NW ran up and spiked it, and never really got the clock started from 9 seconds. But the officials were right to moved it to 8 after that play. You can't possibly run a play that uses no clock time.
October 9th, 2011 at 11:21 AM ^
Oddly, the same type of thing happened a week or so back in a huge game between Auburn and South Carolina. The decison went the other way and the SEC backed up the officials
Personally, I think that running an actual play takes 6-7 seconds. NW had no business running another play and should have kicked the FG. Persa did not throw immediately therefore it was possible time would run out. I also think it's pretty clear that the clock did not start at the snap. The refs should not get involved in micromanaging the clock operator's finger.
October 9th, 2011 at 11:22 AM ^
If you watched the clock all game, for some reason on every play it stopped and started late. Essentially a technical delay in displaying the correct time. Happened on every play. So when the refs reviewed it, of course they saw 2 seconds left. Not sure why on that one...
October 9th, 2011 at 11:47 AM ^
We got some calls in the 2nd half so it evened out.
October 9th, 2011 at 12:04 PM ^
I have not seen the distance to go for a first down off by that much, that consistently, in all my life.
October 9th, 2011 at 8:12 PM ^
They didn't even get possession right for long stretches. The little football on the scoreboard was frozen next to "CATS" for most of the second half.
October 9th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
I don't think I've ever been angrier at the refs before.
October 9th, 2011 at 12:35 PM ^
IMO, all the bad calls basically resulted in a wash.
We definitely had some things go our way, and those will be highlighted since we won the game.
But there was some blatantly obvious holding calls against them that went uncalled. Whereas Michigan seemed to get tagged every time we made that kind of mistake.
Bottom line is that we won by 18. Sure NW may have come down to score on their second to last drive and made it a 4 or 3 point game. But we got them to 4th down for a reason. We were playing pretty solid defense in the second half.
If this had been a one possession game I could beleive that the refs played a bigger role in the outcome. But as it stands, the only thing the refs could have affected was the margin of victory IMO.
October 9th, 2011 at 1:55 PM ^
They don't call blow to the head when a QB contorts at the very last instant, allowing the defender no chance to correct -- especially when the defender was on line for a legal hit below the shoulders.