Underwood capitalized on the extra chance, connecting with J.J. Buchanan for a 47-yard touchdown to complete the comeback. The decision to restore one second, however, has sparked widespread debate, with questions about the clock used by replay officials becoming a central point of contention.
Former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce shared his perspective on the sequence during a recent episode of his New Heights podcast. Kelce argued that officials should not rely on the Hawkeye system for such a crucial decision and should instead focus on the broadcast clock and other independent timekeeping.
“I think at this point every official just needs to double-check any situation like this with the TV clock. Before you make any decision, it shouldn’t be off of the Hawkeye. 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 said.
Kelce’s comments emerged in the wake of Michigan’s controversial finish over Western Michigan. Initially, Underwood’s first pass appeared to end the game. The ball sailed toward the end zone, where Western Michigan defender Micah Davis leaped to intercept, and the clock displayed 0:00 as the play concluded.
A closer review, however, raised questions about whether any time remained. The clock seemed to reach zero while the ball was still in the air, and Davis had already stepped out of bounds. The clock would have stopped when he touched the ball if time remained.
That became the core dispute. Replay officials determined that Davis touched the ball with one second left, permitting Michigan to attempt another play. Yet 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.
NBC officiating analyst Terry McAulay questioned the decision: “The ball isn’t even close to touching the player when it goes to zero. Their Hawk-Eye system apparently had a different sync, and they came up with one second when it touched the players. I don’t see how that happened, assuming our clock is correct. The ball is clearly still in the air when the clock goes to zero on our screen. The Big Ten’s going to have to tell a lot of us how they got to one second on this play.”
The Big Ten initially defended the ruling, stating that its replay system showed one second remaining when Davis touched the ball and that the cameras used by the replay system had been synchronized for the game.
The controversy intensified when the Mid-American Conference later investigated and reached a different conclusion. The MAC stated that the established replay protocol was not followed and that officials should have used the program-feed clock to determine time remaining.
“Rather than relying upon the designated game clock displayed on the program feed, the Big Ten replay crew relied on a separate clock embedded within its replay system. The two clock feeds were not synchronized. 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,” the MAC wrote.
In the end, Michigan was officially declared the winner. Western Michigan entered as a heavy underdog but came close to upsetting Michigan’s 13-12 win on Saturday night.
This sequence has sparked ongoing scrutiny of replay procedures and timekeeping in college football, highlighting how critical clock measurements are in determining outcomes in dramatic late-game finishes.
