Toledo asks Big East to vacate Syracuse's win

There was a case in a Mississippi high school playoff game where one team's win WAS vacated because of an officiating error.

Team A was trailing by 3 on the final play of the game, when their quarterback, after scrambling around desperately, pitched the ball to what he thought was a trailing back, who took the ball in for a touchdown.

However the pitch was ruled an illegal forward pass and a penalty was called. The referees then gave Team B the choice of declining the penalty and allowing the score to stand, or take the penalty and give Team A an untimed down.

Team A then threw a Hail Mary touchdown pass on the play to apparently win the game. However, the MHSAA upheld Team B's protest, citing National Federation rules that in such a case as a penalty on the offense on the last play of the game, the game should have been over right then, and Team A should not have been given another play. The score was stricken and Team B declared the winner.

 

Wouldn't it be refreshing in today's era if we had a coach stand up for what is right and forfeit the game. Won't happen, but it sure would be nice if we had some honor in our sports.

It's like I tell my kids "What's the fun in winning a game, if you have to cheat to do it."

Granted Syracuse didn't overtly "cheat" since it was an official's mistake, but still, they know they missed that extra point.

 

So you'd take something from your own kids for something that was completely out of their control? Plenty of games have been decided by referee miscues; perhaps this was the most obvious example, but it's far from the only one.

Your team played in the circumstances they were placed in and they won. For what cause should they be punished?

 

Not the same thing, though. In that case, it's clear that the play shouldn't have counted. The equivalent in this case would be Syracuse making the extra point with no time left to tie the game, then winning in OT.

Also, if the refs really were on the take, wouldn't they have cheated in a much less obvious way?

 

I think, if you asked the Syracuse players, they would have no problem with vacating a win they did not earn. I am not saying it should be a Syracuse loss and Toledo win, but the game should be ruled a no contest and count as neither on their records.

 

If we're going to start vacating wins based on bad calls by officials, then we're going to have quite the patchwork of records. Syracuse did earn the win; they just benefited from a bad call. I'm sure they as a team and most of them as individuals have been on both sides of the bad call fault line.

 

As much as a "no contest" or outright reversal would be problematic, the Big East should have come out by now and announced whatever sanctions they will be issuing to the officiating crew in question. At a minimum, the replay official should be fired and the field crew should be suspended at least a week or two ... there is precedent for this (although I'm too lazy to Google the situation ... it has happened in football a couple of times in the past 10 years).

 

In fairness, this wasn't your standard "happens to everybody" bad call. Instead, it was the single most inexcusable blown call in many years, if not ever. And it happened in end of game circumstances that clearly did seem to change the outcome of the game (and conveniently covered the point spread by a half point).

For that same reason, I find the BE's response pretty weak. Given the circumstances seems like this one might call for a bit more than your standard "we reviewed it, we acknowledge an error was made, we're taking steps to fix it in the future" boilerplate bad call response statement. Perhaps the statement could've even included... oh I don't know ...something at least resembling an apology for robbing a team of a win through their own outrageous incompetence.

 

Had it been the last play of the game and it was the difference between a win and OT or a loss and OT, I might be more open to a forfeiture/vacating. But Toledo had two minutes and OT to get a win. Not that I don't feel bad for them, but they did have an opportunity.

 

That is not the point. The point is that it should not have come to that. Syracuse had the opportunity to kick an extra point and go up by three points...it failed to do so. However, this failure was not recognized and led to an outcome that should have been different. This call, and review, CHANGED the outcome of the game. That is not an average "happens to everyone" situation.

 

uhh yes it does.

 

Unless someone has an alternate reality machine and can see what would have happened if it had been called correctly, we don't know for sure it changed the outcome.