Overturned Touchdown Will Haunt Ohio State Forever
Ohio State's 29-23 loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff casts the Buckeyes in a role no team and no fan base welcomes.
It's somewhere between, victim, and, vanquished, and there's only torment in that chamber of horrors.
Were the Buckeyes robbed by an egregious officiating overturn that denied them a pivotal, go-ahead touchdown, or were they only innocently impacted by the vagaries of a coin-flip, could-go-either-way call?
Or, even a decision administered correctly?
Your permanent position on that continuum hinges squarely on rooting loyalties and whether they tilt toward OSU scarlet or Clemson orange.
But the decision by referee Ken Williamson to take Jordan Fuller's scoop-and-score touchdown off the board with five minutes left in the third quarter will nag the nether recesses of Ohio State loyalists forever.
OSU's Jeff Okudah appeared to strip the ball from receiver Tee Higgins as he attempted to pull a short throw into his body and run up-field. The ball came out and sat briefly on the turf before Fuller picked it up and weaved through traffic into the end zone.
The apparent score momentarily erased a 21-16 Clemson lead.
Until it didn't.
"We had a lot of good looks on it," Williamson said. "We put it on fast motion and slow motion. The player did not complete the process of the catch, so therefore the pass was incomplete."
Asked about Higgins taking several steps in the course of the play with the ball in his hands, and whether that constituted a catch, Williamson said:
"After the video, instant replay in the stadium as well as back at the video center, they both looked at it slow and fast and they determined when he moved, the ball was becoming loose in his hands and he did not complete the process of the catch."
There's no good time to tell you, but Williamson and his crew are from the Southeastern Conference.
Of course, they are.
So cue the conspiracy theories in Ohio, where fans are accustomed to Charlie Brown pratfalls when Lucy pulls the football away at the last second, but only if they're fans of teams other than Buckeyes.
This kind of stuff simply does not happen to Ohio State.
Of course, in a program where the Clemson loss Saturday night was only the 10th defeat in OSU's last eight seasons -- a period during which it won 99 times -- falling short always sits about a well as a week-old sandwich from a convenience store.
But this loss, because the Fuller touchdown adds seven points to Ohio State's total if nothing else in the game changes -- and that's a big, if -- the Buckeyes and their supporters can make the eternal case they were robbed.
That makes them forever brethren with victims of the Tuck Rule, the Fifth Down or -- and here's the irony -- Miami Hurricanes faithful still steamed by a flag that fell after a seeming fourth-down incompletion gave OSU the chance to beat them in the 2002 national championship game.
To find a loss in Ohio State history that tilted in fans' minds irrevocably toward an officiating failure, you'd have to trek all the way back to a 10-7 loss at Michigan in 1971.
Old-timers still contend Thom Darden committed pass interference to intercept at the Michigan 30 and deny OSU a chance at a tying field goal late in the fourth quarter of a 10-7 loss.
Replay didn't exist then.
If it didn't now, Ohio State might be moving on to play former Buckeye and Heisman winner Joe Burrow and LSU in the national championship game on Jan. 13.
Buckeye Nation has eagerly embraced the Burrow story since his transfer prior to last season.
Now, it can root for him unabashedly against Clemson and without the conflict it might have felt -- OK, maybe just a little bit -- if Burrow were the opponent in two weeks.
That's microscopically-small consolation, of course.
If only LSU weren't from the SEC.
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