Michigan’s controversial 13-12 win over Western Michigan continues to draw attention after the Wolverines were given another chance to win the game. With the clock showing zero following Bryce Underwood’s first Hail Mary attempt, replay officials determined that one second remained. That allowed Michigan to run another play.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
Subsequently, Underwood made the most of the extra opportunity. He found J.J. Buchanan for a 47-yard touchdown to complete the comeback. However, the decision to restore one second has remained heavily debated, with questions surrounding the clock used by replay officials now becoming a major part of the controversy.
Former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce also offered his take on the controversial sequence during a recent episode of his New Heights podcast. Kelce believes that the officials shouldn’t have relied on the Hawkeye system to make such a crucial decision.
“I think at this point I mean every official just needs to double-check any situation like this with the TV clock. Like, before you make any decision, it shouldn’t be off of the Hawkeye. Like, what’s the point of looking at Hawkeye? Just look at what everybody else is watching for, like, a second thing. You know what I mean? Something with a game clock shouldn’t even come down to it. Who cares if it’s synced or not? Just go off the TV copy.”
Kelce’s comments surfaced days after Michigan’s controversial finish over Western Michigan. For broader context, Underwood’s first attempt appeared to end the game. The pass sailed toward the end zone, where Western Michigan defender Micah Davis went up for the ball. At the time, the clock displayed 0:00 as the play ended.
However, a closer look at the replay raised questions about whether there was actually any time left. The clock appeared to hit 0:00 while the ball was still in the air, before Davis made contact with it. Since Davis had already stepped out of bounds, the clock would have stopped when he touched the ball, but only if there was still time remaining.
That became the main point of contention. Replay officials determined that Davis touched the ball with one second remaining, allowing Michigan to get another play. However, the television broadcast appeared to show the clock reaching zero before Davis made contact, creating a discrepancy between what viewers saw and what the replay officials determined.
“The ball isn’t even close to touching the player when it goes to zero,” NBC officiating analyst Terry McAulay raised the question. “Now their Hawk-Eye system apparently either was — had a different sync or whatever and they came up with one second when it touched the players. I don’t see how that happened, assuming our clock is correct. It is clearly not touching the player. The ball is clearly still in the air when the clock goes to zero on our screen. So the Big Ten’s going to have to tell a lot of us how did they get to one second on this play.”
The Big Ten initially defended the decision, saying its replay system showed that one second remained when Davis touched the ball. The conference also said the cameras used by the replay system had been synchronized before the game.
However, the controversy took another turn when the Mid-American Conference later investigated the sequence and reached a different conclusion. The MAC said the established replay protocol was not followed and that officials should have used the program-feed clock when determining how much time remained.
“Rather than relying upon the designated game clock displayed on the program feed, the Big Ten replay crew relied upon a separate clock embedded within its replay system. The two clock feeds were not synchronized,” the MAC wrote. “The game clock displayed on the program feed showed that the clock had expired.
“The clock embedded within the replay system, however, showed time remaining. Despite the protocol expressly requiring replay officials to rely solely upon the game clock displayed on the program feed, the replay crew utilized the unsynchronized replay-system clock and restored time to the game clock.”
But when the dust settled, Michigan remained the official winner. Western Michigan entered as a 28-point underdog. But despite leading 12-7 late in the game, they failed to escape Michigan’s 13-12 controversial win on Saturday night.