It’s too late to spare Western Michigan a crushing defeat, but the Big Ten announced Wednesday that it will expand access to replay reviews for all TV broadcasts of games officiated by the conference, effective this Saturday.
The decision comes after the controversy engulfing last week’s game between Michigan and Western Michigan, with the Wolverines pulling out a 13-12 victory on a 47-yard Hail Mary completion after one second was added to the game clock despite the NBC broadcast showing that the fourth quarter had expired on the previous play.
The enhanced access to the replay process will include seven games involving Big Ten teams on Saturday, including No. 5 Indiana at home against Howard.
Several hours after last week’s controversial ending, the Big Ten released a video detailing the decision by the replay officials, even though such enhanced access was not immediately made available to NBC or its audience.
According to Wednesday’s announcement, the broadcasts for all Big Ten games and more than 20 non-conference contests now “will feature live audio between the game referee and replay official during reviews, alongside video of the game footage being viewed during the process and a view inside the state-of-the-art Big Ten Replay Center.”
Jon Steinbrecher, the commissioner of the Mid-American Conference, made a written appeal earlier this week to the NCAA’s football oversight committee and the College Football Playoff, requesting that Western Michigan be declared the winner of Saturday’s game. ESPN reported that rules “do not include a mechanism for reversing outcomes of games that have already been declared over.”
Ron Snodgrass, the NCAA’s national coordinator of officials, sent a memo to both conferences outlining a “standard timing protocol to ensure consistency in how games are officiated.
“When a replay review requires time to be restored or otherwise adjusted, the replay official’s decision will be based on the embedded game clock contained within the program feed,” the memo stated, according to ESPN.
“If the broadcaster is unable to provide an embedded game clock, the replay official will use the game-clock graphic displayed as part of the broadcast feed.”
