West Virginia Cheated out of a Victory

Austin, Texas – Anyone watching today’s game saw that the West Virginia Mountaineers were clearly the better team.  It’s a waste of time to discuss all of the calls that went against the Mountaineers, but know that on the field calls are almost never overturned.

For an on the field call to be overturned, there must be indisputable video evidence of the initial ruling being wrong. According to the rules, “The instant replay process operates under the fundamental assumption that the ruling on the field is correct. The replay official may reverse a ruling if and only if the video evidence convinces him beyond all doubt that the ruling was incorrect. Without such indisputable video evidence, the replay official must allow the ruling to stand.”

That was simply not the case in either of the the overturned calls in today’s game.  Winston Wright’s touchdown was questionable at best.  Perhaps the ball touched the ground, perhaps the ball wasn’t entirely controlled, but the video was not indisputable.

The overturned “forward pass” was so unclear that there is simply no way in hell that anyone could have ruled that the video evidence was “indisputable.”  It was unclear.  Thus, the ruling on the field should have stood.

In addition, the final offensive play by the Mountaineers was a clear pass interference call on what would have been a go-ahead touchdown for West Virginia.  This, of course, was not called.

In a game that meant so much to the West Virginia football program, they were facing not just a stout Texas defense, they were also facing referees clearly hellbent on handing the game to the Longhorns.