It happened not once, but twice yesterday. A player has an easy touchdown and while taking his foot off the gas to coast for the score – the player proceeds to drop the ball before crossing the goal line? Why does this happen seemingly every year?
One occurrence happened in Ohio State vs Oklahoma. In the game, Ohio State jumped out to an early 14-0 lead when Oklahoma running back, Joe Mixon, returned a kickoff for a 97-yard touchdown. Only it shouldn’t have been a touchdown since he dropped the ball at the 1-yard line and the refs missed it.
Now in the grand scheme of things, the missed call didn’t mean anything. Oklahoma couldn’t keep the momentum and lost 45-24. A separate question is how the refs and the replay booth missed an obvious call?
In Texas vs California, Cal was winning 50-43 with 1:30 left in the 4th quarter. All they needed was a first down to be able to run the clock out. Vic Enwere broke free up the middle and got more than a first down, he scored the put away touchdown… or he should have, had he not dropped the ball before crossing the goal line.
The refs got this call correct and said he didn’t score, but they said there was no clear recovery (despite in the replay you can clearly see a Texas player pick-up the ball). Since there was no clear recovery in the eyes of the refs, Cal kept the ball and won the game. It could have been huge if it was ruled Texas recovered and potentially won the game.
Last week, Ray Ray McCloud, a Clemson wide-receiver, dropped the ball before scoring against Troy and the score was called back.
The question is why does this keep happening. Players need to start running through the goal line because eventually this is going to cost a team a game. Coaches need to hold the players accountable – if you make this boneheaded play, you sit on the bench for a while. That might drive the point home.
