An Offensive Pass Interference

Yes, the call was offensive.

The prevailing wisdom on ESPN (insert joke here) is that the call was right.  My initial reaction was that the call was right.  I was wrong.  There are a number of problems with the call.

1.  We ran a very similar play earlier in the game (Kelly says it was a different play, but there was very similar action).  No flag was thrown and Corey Robinson scored a touchdown.  If it's not a penalty then, it can't be a penalty with 13 seconds left in the game.

2.  The official standing right there on the goal line signaled touchdown.  The official on the same side in the back corner didn't throw a flag either.  An official away from the play that didn't have nearly as good of a look is the one who threw the flag.

3.  There is a quite obvious penalty on Florida State.  After the play, number 26 takes off his helmet.  You can see it clearly at the 0:52 mark of that video.  I'm not sure how the enforcement would have worked.  Some people seem to think the penalties would offset and they'd replay the down.  I've also read that both penalties would be enforced because pass interference was during the play, but taking the helmet off was a dead ball foul.  In that case, we would have had a new set of downs.  We would have moved back 15 yards on the pass interference, but then it would have been half the distance from there.  So the net result would have been that we'd be around the 8 or 9 yard line, but we'd have a chance for two or three plays.  I'm not sure which scenario is right, but they obviously just missed an indisputable penalty on Florida State.

4.  I've written about this before, but having officials work for a conference makes absolutely no sense.  Which result is better for the ACC, Notre Dame winning or Florida State winning?  Obviously, Florida State winning is better for the ACC (Florida State is probably their only hope for a playoff team).  Is there any reason to believe that people who work for the ACC will be completely impartial?  Would that call have been made against Florida State if the roles were reversed?

5.  Now, I'm not an expert on the rule book, but what I do know is that part of the standard for defensive pass interference is that the contact has to be consequential.  If a ball is uncatchable, you can't have defensive pass interference.  Also, you can't have pass interference away from the play.  If the ball is thrown to Corey Robinson, you can't have pass interference called on the guy covering Will Fuller.  It doesn't matter what he does to Fuller since it would have no effect on the play.  Now maybe the standard for offensive pass interference is different.  But if that's the case, there's a problem with the rule.  Whoever was allegedly interfered with (hold on, I'll get there) had no chance of preventing the pass from being completed or preventing Robinson from scoring.  Florida State was playing man to man coverage.  Whichever guy was allegedly interfered with was not covering Corey Robinson.  The guy that was supposed to be covering Robinson was totally lost (the other way to look at it is that they guy who should have adjusted to try to defend Robinson never did).  On defense, it's no harm no foul.  It should be that way on offense too.

6.  I don't know if the call was on C.J. Procise or Will Fuller.  It was announced by the referee as number 7 (Fuller), but some people seem to think it was Procise.  Let's go through both possibilities.

If it was on Procise, he was grabbed as soon as the ball was snapped by the defender (you can see that in the first second of the video linked above).  How can Procise interfere when the defender was the one who initiated the contact?

If it was on Fuller, it's just as bad of a call (maybe worse).  The claim on ESPN was that the receivers were just blocking and made no effort to run a route.  This video shows that claim is completely untrue in the case of Fuller.  Fuller takes a step to the outside and the corner goes with him (go to 1:38 of the video).  Then Fuller cuts inside and the defender goes with him.  The defender is running away from where Corey Robinson is going at that point.  He had no chance to make a play.  And like with Procise, the defender initiates contact.

7.  The defenders were mad.  Why?  Because they knew they blew the coverage.  Usually when there's pass interference, the players will complain to the officials right away.  The only thing the defenders were upset with was each other because they blew it.

Perhaps according the rule book, the call was right.  Again, if it was, there's a problem with the rule.  This play was the equivalent of wiping off a game winning shot in basketball because of a moving screen that had absolutely nothing to do with getting the shooter open.  And there's no defense for missing a penalty on Florida State after the play (there's no debate about whether or not taking the helmet off is a penalty).

I'm not one to complain about officials.  I didn't complain about the Bush Push because that call never would have been made against Notre Dame in that situation (I did complain after the fact about USC using a professional football player in a college football game).  You don't make that call.  And you don't make this call either.  Notre Dame had other opportunities to make plays that could have won the game.  But when they did make the play to win the game, one of the officials took it away from them.

The good news is that we should control our own destiny for the playoff.  At most, there will be two undefeated teams from the power conferences.  If you want to put an SEC team with one loss ahead of us, I can live with that.  But Oregon and Michigan State and whoever else do not deserve to be ahead of us (Oregon lost at home to Arizona by seven and Michigan State lost by 19 against Oregon).  I'm not sure that we'll finish 11-1, but we should go to the playoff if we do.

And I've changed my name on here to Jim Slice.  Because Jimbo Fisher is a scumbag.  Him talking about the class and dignity of Florida State and Jameis Winston after the game was just as offensive as the pass interference call on Will Fuller.  Or C.J. Procise.  Or whoever.

What happened on Saturday night was wrong.  Let's take this out on the rest of the schedule.  The rest of these games don't need to be close.  Let's finish 13-1 and National Champions.  Go Irish!