The ACC Admitted That The Officials Missed Calls That Would Have Benefited Miami In Their Matchup Against Duke

YardBarker- Last weekend’s Duke-Miami game ended on one of the most incredible plays you will ever see at any level of football, as the Hurricanes won the game on a kick return touchdown that included eight laterals. However, it quickly became clear that the play should never have counted.

Or, if you want to look at it from Miami’s viewpoint, perhaps the officiating crew owed the Hurricanes a break. As Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald notes, Miami athletic director Blake James wrote a letter to season ticket holders this week explaining that the ACC admitted the Hurricanes were also victimized by bad calls.

“Per ACC policy our football staff submitted the plays we believed were incorrectly called as a matter of weekly protocol, and were notified by the league that multiple incorrect calls impacting our team occurred during the game, including a pass interference call on the final drive,” James wrote.

James said he also voiced his concern with ACC Commissioner John Swofford over the “negative light” the situation has created for Miami.



Okay, first of all, let's just get this out of the way. The ACC "privately" admitting that their officials missed calls that would benefitted the team that won, but shouldn't have won, because of bad officiating is their way of covering their ass. It's a pretty lousy attempt, but that's what it is. The ending of the Duke/Miami game was such a goddamn mess that justifying the officiating a week later is like trying to use a single square of one ply toilet paper to wipe your butt the morning after Taco Tuesday.
Whatever, how ever they want rationalize that the right team won is fine. It doesn't change the fact that the referees should be fired, and that the game was a huge black mark on the resume of a prestigious conference. However, what it does do is speak to the reason why I didn't think the result of the game should have been changed the day after.

Sports are a lot like life. Shit happens. It's not always fair. It doesn't always make sense. Referees make bad calls, or non-calls, every single game. They add another human element to sports. It's not always X's and O's. Sometimes you are going to deserve to win and lose, and sometimes you deserve to lose and win. Do I think it's fair that the officials missed about 300 calls as Miami was lateraling their way to a victory? Nope. Can I rationalize a flag not being throw when one guy's knee was clearly down, there were about 32 blocks in the back, and half the Miami roster was rushing on to the field like they were going in to battle before the play was even over? Of course I can't. That was the mind boggling display of braindead officiating that I have EVER seen in sports, and that's saying something. Does it suck that Duke's perfect season fell victim to a complete lack of common sense? Absolutely. However, you can't go back and change the results of sporting event once the sun has set and risen on the results of said sporting event. I don't care if the refs sat Indian style at the 50 yard line and discussed what the fuck just happened while playing tiddlywinks for 45 minutes. Whatever they had to do to get the call right in that moment. However, once those teams hit the locker, and those pads come off, the game is over. The score is written in stone. Doesn't matter how many shitty calls went against Miami over the course of 59 minutes and 50 seconds of gameplay, and it doesn't matter how many non-calls went against Duke over the course of the last 10 seconds. Once the game is over, it's over, and opening it up to interpretation a day later is a Pandora's box that doesn't need to be unsealed.

Miami just did this to win a football game... pic.twitter.com/ck4a4JUseN

— Sports Comedy (@SportsComedy_) November 1, 2015