Monday, October 12, 2009

Picky call takes away winning score

by Barca Blog - What should have been a proud moment for senior receiver Alex Washington and the rest of the Commodore offense was erased by a questionable call from the ACC officiating crew Saturday in West Point.

Down 13-10 to Army in the final minute of regulation, quarterback Larry Smith found Washington wide open in the corner of the end zone for what would have been the game-winning touchdown. But receiver Udom Umoh was flagged for pass interference for picking Washington's defender to negate the score.

After reviewing the film, head coach Bobby Johnson addressed the play on his coaches show last night.

"I thought it was a poor call," Johnson said. "Udom was the outside receiver going in, and Alex was the inside receiver going out. Udom ran a little curl and was setup right where he was supposed to be. He wasn't even on the same level as their defensive back. The player covering Udom came in and pushed him in the back and into the other defensive back (covering Washington) and the official called offensive interference against us.

"To me, it was plain as day if you were looking at that play. I don't see how you could miss it."

Yes, I think we'd all agree that you can't hang this disappointing loss on one missed call. The Commodores committed several mistakes throughout the game that ultimately doomed their comeback bid (Johnson stated the same thing, too). But it's also hard to ignore that a "picky" penalty took the winning score off the board.

And no matter how the team played against Army, 3-3 would look a whole lot better right now than 2-4 going into Georgia week.

(photo by Stan Jones)

2 comments:

  1. Better play calling wouldn't have put in the position to be depending on that pass. We should have scored on first or second down, but that's a testament to our offense this year.

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