You’ve seen the play by now.
It’s inane, insane and anything but mundane, the type of moment meant for a Dr. Seuss book. It’s inexcusable, inexplicable and, in more ways than one, indefensible.
It’s also incredible, a sensational slice of the magic of college sports.
I’m talking, of course, about Miami’s controversial game-winning kickoff return against Duke on Saturday, in which the Hurricanes threw eight laterals before defensive back Corn Elder carried the ball 91 yards for a touchdown.
As ridiculous as the play itself was, the officiating was even more farcical and perhaps more interesting. Nine minutes of replay review were not enough to prevent the referees from making four errors.
Two of them were minor, another a tough call.
But one was egregious.
Replays clearly showed that Miami running back Mark Walton’s knee was down before he released one of the team’s early laterals. The call was so obvious that evidence exists not only in grainy, slow-mo video footage but also in crystal-clear still photo form.
On Sunday, the Atlantic Coast Conference admitted the four mistakes and suspended the entire officiating crew for two conference games.
The suspensions are an interesting step for college football, which produces months of excitement thanks to the unpredictability of its results and the inevitable gaffes of its participants.
Do you like preposterous upsets week in and week out? Receivers running uncovered, deep behind a defense? Quarterbacks under-throwing those wide-open receivers? College football is for you!
Along with the blundering, unstable gameplay comes the thrilling finishes that define the sport. Just look at the month of October.
Michigan famously lost when its punter dropped a snap with 10 seconds left, allowing Michigan State to return the ball for a game-winning touchdown. Florida State lost when its field goal unit failed to cover Georgia Tech’s return of a blocked kick. Boston College lost when – after trading fumbles within the final two minutes with Wake Forest – it was stuffed on a goal-line run play and then spiked the ball as the clock expired.
College football puts a spotlight on large groups of teenagers and early-20-somethings, performing for stadiums full of prideful, emotionally invested spectators. By its very nature, it’s delightfully amateur theater.
Fans watch their alma maters the way parents watch their children’s youth sporting events. They pray their kids don’t mess up, but know they eventually will and all the while, they criticize the coach.
So we could view the Miami-Duke referees as a part of the act, as fittingly clumsy narrators of the erratic performances on display. But we don’t.
The difference: The referees are twenty, maybe thirty, years older than the players.
In so many ways, we don’t recognize just how young college athletes are. At the age of 18, they’re treated like professionals, placed under hyper-intense media scrutiny and forced to shoulder the expectations of huge swaths of supporters.
But in one way, we do subconsciously recognize their youth and their amateur status. We expect mistakes. When mistakes happen, we accept and embrace them in a way we don’t when we watch the NFL.
We understand, because the players are young and unpaid. The same can’t be said of the referees.
