On Monday, two days after a sketchy (at best) offside call overturned a successful onside kick that would have put the Gophers football team in position to upset Michigan, the Big Ten announced that not only had officials messed up but also that new protocols were being put in place for future kicks.
RandBall: Gophers the latest Minnesota team to endure a late-game bad call and spur rule change
The Gophers football team was on the wrong end of a controversial call on an onside kick that could have led to an upset of Michigan on Saturday. The Big Ten quickly changed how it calls the play, but not in time to help Minnesota.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
October 1, 2024 at 5:23PM
“We submitted the play to the Big Ten coordinator of officials for review,” Gophers coach P.J. Fleck said of Bill Carollo. “The coordinator informed us the play was too tight to flag.”
Multiple officials instead of only one will now line up on the 35-yard line on kickoffs to ensure they’re “in the best position to consistently make the correct judgment.”
As a result, the Gophers and Michigan will resume their game at an unspecified date with about 90 seconds left and Minnesota in possession of the ball at the Wolverines’ 38, trailing 27-24.
Ah, whoops. Of course they won’t. The game is still over. The Gophers still lost, as I talked about on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast and certainly will talk about more Wednesday with Gophers football writer Randy Johnson.
Now the Gophers are the latest Minnesota team to be on the wrong end of a bad call or bad rule that spurred a change but didn’t alter the outcome of a huge moment.
The one I always think of immediately is the NFL changing how overtime works. The Vikings lost the NFC Championship Game after the 2009 season in overtime after the Saints won the coin toss and kicked the game-winning field goal without the Vikings getting a chance on offense. By 2010, the NFL had modified the rule for the postseason. Spoiler alert: It didn’t help the Vikings.
My friend Jeff Shelman reminded me on Twitter that the NBA only a few weeks ago changed its review system to allow officials to call a foul if it directly impacts an out-of-bounds challenge. The NBA in its news release specifically cited the play in last year’s Western Conference finals Game 2 where Dallas was awarded the ball even though Kyrie Irving clearly fouled Jaden McDaniels. The Wolves were up by two with 47 seconds left at the time. They ended up losing 109-108 and were eventually swept.
We should also note that the pass from the Cardinals’ Josh McCown to Nate Poole that knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs on the final play of the 2003 regular season wasn’t a completion five years later when the NFL changed the push-out rule.
And Game 163 between the Twins and White Sox in 2008? That 1-0 Twins loss was only played in Chicago because MLB had a bizarre rule that gave home-field advantage to the ... winner of a coin flip? Yep. The Twins won the season series 10-9 that year.
They changed the rule by 2009, when the Twins were again in Game 163, again won the season series (against Detroit this time) and prevailed 6-5 in 12 innings at the Metrodome in one of the greatest games in franchise history.
At least a Minnesota team got to benefit once from a rule change.
Here are four more things to know today:
- Baseball legend and career hits leader Pete Rose died Monday at age 83. I talked on Tuesday’s podcast about a 2016 interview I did with Rose and the resulting story on Ichiro’s what-if pursuit of Rose’s hit record.
- Also on Tuesday’s show, Star Tribune Vikings writer Andrew Krammer joined me to review Sunday’s film and dissect my three hot takeaways. You can watch me make the case for Sam Darnold as MVP here:
- It could have been an incredibly awkward Timberwolves media day, but fortunately players were free to talk about the soon-to-be-official Karl-Anthony Towns trade.
- Jared Goff went 18-for-18 and didn’t even get a game ball. Oh, and the Lions are 3-1 and looking every bit as good as they were a year ago.
The star forward came back from a brief injury absence, and two goals from Frederick Gaudreau helped Minnesota to another road victory.
