UCLA Bruins Football (1919-), In the Pac-12 Conference since 1959

[DonRocks]

UCLA scored 35 unanswered points on Saturday to defeat Texas A&M, 45-44, in the second-biggest comeback in NCAA football history.

That said, I believe if their final touchdown was reviewed correctly (or, at all), it *might* have been overturned: Only one foot landed in-bounds, and the ball was in the process of sliding out of the receiver's hands until it was stopped by his leg. There probably isn't enough conclusive evidence to overturn the call, but I think that if it wasn't for his leg, the ball would have slipped through the receiver's hands. Judge for yourself:

"LOOK: Was UCLA's Game-Winning TD Pass vs. Texas A&M Actually Incomplete?" by Ben Kercheval on cbssports.com <--- Scroll down.

The key issue is: If the receiver had control of the ball when his right leg came down, then it's a touchdown. One way of looking at the sequence is:

1) Right leg lands in the end zone.
2) Ball is slipping, but is stabilized by leg.
3) Left leg lands out-of-bounds.

And unless he had "control of the ball" at the time #1) occurred, it's not a touchdown.

An alternative way of looking at it is:

1) Receiver catches ball over his head, and has control at that point.
2) Right leg lands in the end zone.
3) Ball starts slipping out *after* the right foot landed.

In which case it's a touchdown. Looking at it from this point of view, you can't overturn the call.

This is a tough one, but unless it's definitive, the call must stand. I've watched this probably 100 times, and I can't tell for sure, but it seems to me like:

1) Receiver catches ball over his head, and has control at that point.
2) The ball hits the receiver's right rib cage, and the ball is jarred loose.
3) About 1/100th of a second after that, the receiver's right leg lands in the end zone.
4) The receiver stabilizes the ball with his leg.
5) Left leg lands out-of-bounds.

Only God knows for sure what happened, but I think the analysis immediately above is correct. In other words, he didn't have control, but you can't possibly overturn this call. You'll need to watch the video loop 20 times just to clearly see the time difference between #2) and #3).

To me, the most interesting thing is that, if the play was ruled incomplete, there wouldn't be enough conclusive evidence to overturn that call either - so either way it was called, the call must stand. Whew!

(Don't forget, even if the pass was called incomplete, it would have been only 2nd down, so UCLA would have had 3 more chances.)