ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said a replay official mistakenly awarded Michigan a touchdown during its game against Michigan State, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“The people in the replay booth made a mistake,” Delany said at the conference’s basketball media day Sunday. “It wasn’t a mistake of judgment, it was a mistake of an application of the rule. They applied the wrong rule and they applied it improperly.”
Delany says a replay official’s decision to give on Saturday was “not acceptable” and said discipline could follow.
Michigan’s Brandon Minor leaped to make a catch and knocked over the pylon at the front corner of the end zone on his way down, causing the on-field referee to rule the play incomplete.
The replay official overturned the call, ruling that because Minor’s foot hit the pylon, it was a touchdown. According to NCAA rules, however, an airborne player who touches a pylon is considered out of bounds.
The first-quarter touchdown tied the score at 7-7 but didn’t affect the result of the game, which Michigan State won 35-21.
“I expect more from them than that,” Delany said. “You can understand a mistake of judgment on the field, and you can even understand possibly not getting the standard right because we want indisputable video evidence that a play is wrong. But to apply the wrong rule to a situation is not acceptable to me.”
After the game, referee David Witvoet repeated the rule about an airborne player touching the pylon and deferred further comment to the Big Ten.
Add A Comment