Fair catch or no fair catch? Regardless, football gods smiled on Gophers

IOWA CITY – Cooper DeJean waved his left arm. That fact is indisputable. Three times in a circular motion, as if he were a school crossing guard waving traffic through the line.

His arm stayed shoulder height as he waved, not straight up above his head.

Does that constitute a fair catch?

Depends on whether the person answering that question lives in Minnesota or Iowa.

Ultimately, the officiating crew ruled that DeJean's waving motion met the standard of an invalid fair catch, and the 117th battle for the bronzed pig was guaranteed a finish that will be debated for eternity.

The football gods smiled on the Gophers in a place that normally torments them.

From heartbreak to elation in a blink, the Gophers left Kinnick Stadium victorious Saturday for the first time since 1999 with a 12-10 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes in a game that was many layers of ugly but will be remembered for one play.

Said Gophers coach P.J. Fleck: "I'm not an official, right? But there was something."

Said Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz: "It's really hard to accept the explanation we got."

Said DeJean: "I am still kind of in shock of what all happened. Seems like it was all taken away in that one play."

The sequence involving DeJean is destined to become the subject of an oral history someday.

Leading 12-10, the Gophers punted from their own 14 with 1:46 remaining in the game. Mark Crawford's punt into the wind landed and started bouncing short of where DeJean was in position.

As he ran to grab the ball near the Gophers sideline, DeJean was pointing with his right hand and waving with his left arm. He didn't raise his arm above his head in a traditional fair catch signal.

DeJean fielded the punt at the 46, pivoted inches from the sideline and then cut across the field to the end zone for a 54-yard touchdown that looked like it would extend the Gophers' losing streak in demoralizing fashion.

Except the play was reviewed. The assumption initially was that officials wanted to determine if he stepped out of bounds. He clearly didn't, but instead the officials ruled that he made an invalid fair catch signal by waving his arm.

"An invalid signal is any waving motion by a receiving team member that happens throughout the kickdown," referee Tim O'Dey told a pool reporter. "That waving motion of the left hand constitutes an invalid fair catch signal. So when the receiving team recovers the ball, by rule it becomes dead. We let the play run out, and then when we went to review, review shows with indisputable evidence that there is a waving motion with the left hand."

The ball returned to the 46-yard line where DeJean fielded it. Three plays later, Justin Walley intercepted Deacon Hill's pass, and the Gophers were able to touch Floyd of Rosedale for the first time since 2014.

Ferentz fumed afterward, noting that he discussed fair catch procedures with officials during the standard pregame meeting.

"I've heard the explanation [from O'Dey]," he said of the invalid fair catch ruling. "It's hard to make it make sense. Again, to make it consistent with the conversations we have with the officials before every game regarding that topic. It's something you always cover in case it does happen. We are all on the same page."

Apparently not. Something got lost in translation if the officials determined the waving motion to be indisputable evidence of a violation.

Two factors made it go viral nationally:

One, the circumstances, obviously. That play decided the outcome of a rivalry game.

Two, it's a call that happens so infrequently that it creates confusion and inevitably angers the penalized team.

DeJean had no intention of fair catching the ball. But when a returner waves his hand to the degree that he did, he gives the officials an opening to make that call.

Much of what happened in the 60 minutes of game action will be forgotten, thankfully, because the performance by both teams was hard to watch. The Gophers came this close to another heartbreak. An all-timer at that.

But then DeJean waved his arm before ripping off a spectacular return, and a rivalry a century old had an ending that will be debated for a long, long time.