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Michigan barely escaped Week 1 with a win over Western Michigan, and now the NCAA wants to make sure nothing like that controversial finish happens again. The organization just rolled out a standardized timekeeping protocol for every college football game going forward.
Ron Snodgrass, the NCAA’s national coordinator of officials, sent out a memo laying out the new rules. According to ESPN, the memo calls for one consistent method: the clock embedded in the broadcast feed will now serve as the official source for any replay review.
“The official time for all college football games is the time displayed on the in-stadium game clock,” Snodgrass wrote. “When a replay review requires time to be restored or otherwise adjusted, the replay official’s decision will be based on the embedded game clock contained within the program feed. If the broadcaster is unable to provide an embedded game clock, the replay official will use the game-clock graphic displayed as part of the broadcast feed. This timing protocol should be followed consistently at all institutions and game sites.”
That last line matters. Consistency is exactly what was missing on Saturday night.
Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood launched a Hail Mary that sailed out the back of the end zone. On NBC’s broadcast, the clock hit zero the moment a Western Michigan defender touched the ball out of bounds. Game over, or so it seemed.
Big Ten officials reviewed the play and put one second back on the clock. Underwood got a second chance, connected with JJ Buchanan near the front of the end zone, and Michigan escaped with a 13-12 win that nobody outside Ann Arbor is still talking about calmly.
The Big Ten later explained its process in a statement, saying officials synced “a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium.” They even released video of that sync, which showed one second remaining when the play ended.
Michigan survived. But under the rule that now exists, it might not have.
Western Michigan would’ve pulled off the upset
NBC’s rules analyst Terry McAulay, a former NFL referee, wasn’t buying the Big Ten’s math in real time. He said he couldn’t find any evidence that the ball touched a player before the clock ran out.
“The ball isn’t even close to touching a player when it goes to zero,” McAulay said. “Their system, their hawkeye system, apparently either had a different sync or whatever, and they came up with one second when it touched a player. I don’t see that happen. Assuming our clock is correct, it is clearly not touching a player. The ball is clearly still in the air when the clock goes to zero on our screen. The Big Ten is going to have to tell a lot of us how did they get to one second on this play.”
Here’s the thing: had this new protocol been in place that night, the broadcast clock would’ve been the final word. That means the game ends after the first Hail Mary, no second attempt, no miracle finish. Western Michigan walks away with the biggest win in program history, and Michigan opens 0-1 heading into a marquee matchup with Oklahoma.
The fight over that finish isn’t over
Western Michigan and the Mid-American Conference (MAC) seemed to accept the loss at first. That changed once the conference took a closer look at how the replay decision actually got made.
Now the MAC wants the NCAA FBS Oversight Committee and the College Football Playoff (CFP) to recognize the Broncos as the real winners of that game.
“The established replay protocol requires that the game clock displayed on the broadcast feed be used in determining whether time remaining,” the MAC said in a statement. “Instead, the Big Ten Conference replay crew relied upon the clock feed embedded within its replay system. As a result, one second was placed back on the game clock and an additional play was awarded.”
CFP executive director Rich Clark told CBS Sports’ Richard Johnson it’s too soon to say how, or if, this situation gets factored into playoff ranking discussions later this season.
“We would have to bring that to the management committee to give guidance on how that should be considered,” Clark said. “We just got the letter today, so I haven’t even brought it to the management committee yet.”
Western Michigan president Russ Kavalhuna backed the MAC’s stance in his own statement on Tuesday, pushing back on anyone who thought the conference’s complaint was some kind of sore-loser move.
“Some have read our actions as weak,” Kavalhuna said. “However, supporting student-athletes and their growth during a time of adversity is strength. Being bitter doesn’t make you better and this should not be mistaken for weakness or agreement. We can show respect for the game while also asking serious questions; I’ve done both, and I’ll keep doing both.”
The result on the scoreboard isn’t changing. But Michigan is already paying a price of sorts. When the Week 2 AP poll dropped Tuesday, the Wolverines fell from No. 16 to unranked entirely, making them the highest-ranked team ever to fall out of the poll after winning a game.
