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By TJ Macias
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The ACC officiating crew is on blast following an unbelievable call that most likely would have changed the entire outcome of the formerly undefeated Miami Hurricanes 31-24 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday.
With a less than four minutes left in the fourth, Miami tight end Elija Lofton appeared to come down with the ball – and two feet in bounds – in the corner of the end zone. After he stepped out of bounds, Notre Dame safety Luke Talich knocked the ball out of Lofton’s hands. Officials said the pass was incomplete, and the call was upheld after a review.
The evidence couldn’t have been clearer according to so many professionals, players, fans, coaches and they started holding the officials’ feet to the fire.
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Then you have the other side: Refs and ex-officials.
One such person is Gene Steratore, CBS rules analyst and former official for both the NFL and NCAA basketball who went on a long rant in a video on X, explaining what he witnessed:
“Let’s talk a little bit of all the buzz that occurred yesterday in the Notre Dame, Miami game. Elija Lofton in the end zone, receiving a pass near the sideline of the end zone. 31-24 game – is it a catch? Isn’t it a catch? Let’s break down a few elements of this real quickly.
“The process of the catch and making a catch complete is the same in the end zone as it would be in the field of play. This isn’t like a runner diving to the goal line and as soon as the ball breaks the plane of the goal line, the play is over, it’s a touchdown. When we have catch situations, all three elements must be met. As we watch Elija on this play, we see him possess the football with two hands. We see two feet hit inbounds in the end zone and then we come that third part of what is or isn’t the finalization of the catch, which is extremely subjective. And that is the time element to make a football move or a football move on its own. If you watch this play in real time it’s just an incomplete pass – it’s too quick. He doesn’t finish the end and the ball’s knocked out, it’s incomplete and that is what the officials ruled on the field.
“But as we all know in this day and age of replay, upper technology, frame by frame analysis, what is really a split second in time becomes a very long period of time as it relates to the third part of the catch. So when we do see possession, two feet and start to see the ball move a little more, is that enough to make a football move? Is it not enough? Quite Frankly, I think this isn’t a catch whether it’s really slow or whether it’s really fast. I think the bigger question is, as we move forward, at what slowness from real speed, should we be reviewing these plays?
“My sweet spot would be three quarters of the speed of real time. At 75%, officials and players who were screwed in on the field are seeing the game kind of at that speed. Replay, if you can’t fix that at 75% of real time, then leave the call alone to the official.
“Final decision: No catch.”
Long way of saying “I was a former ref, I stand with refs, mmmkay?”
Try explaining this to Miami coach Mario Cristobal, who spent the post-game figuratively ripping out the throats of the ACC officials.
“I’m pissed off. It’s [expletive], and I’ll leave it at that,” Cristobal said to reporters about the call, according to ESPN. “That’s the way it was seen by them. So I got to live with it and respect it, and our players got to live with it, and we got to do better. Again, don’t leave it in the hands of officials.”
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