Atlantic Coast Conference Suspends Duke-Miami Crew

The Atlantic Coast Conference has taken an unusual action. According to reports from Jon Solomon of CBS Sports, the ACC suspended the entire officiating crew that worked on the Miami-Duke game.

That means the entire crew including the two replay related officials will not be used for two football games or two weeks of action. Those referees involved are Jerry Magallanes, Terrance Ramsay, Mike Owens, Jim Slayton, Robert Luklan, Bill Dolbow, Michael McCarthy, Tracy Lynch, Andrew Panucci, and George Burton.

The conference cited four mistakes made by the crew on the final play of the Miami-Duke game. Interestingly no other errors by the crew were cited from the game itself which had plenty of flags and whistles.

The errors were:

– A Miami player’s knee was down before he was able to successfully lateral the ball. This lateral was not overturned when the play went to the replay booth as it should have been.

– The crew missed a block in the back penalty on the play back at the 16 yard line.

– A block in the back flag was thrown and never assessed for another block on the 26 yard line. The officials evidently picked up that flag, but that was never explained. The flag was picked up properly, but should have had better communication on what happened.

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– The crew failed to penalize celebrating Miami players from entering the field before the play had ended. This would not have cancelled the touchdown, but it would have been enforced as a dead ball foul.

One of the weird things to me that this revealed is that the offense (or at least the special teams) can extend the game on a penalty. Had either of the block in the back penalties been enforced, Miami would still have had one play to try and win the game.

Next: Duke: Bizarre Loss to Miami

Think how stupid this is. If you are engaged in one of these lateral situations and you clearly are not going to make it, just clip somebody to get another play. Then try the Hail Mary or maybe you will be in field goal range for a winning kick. That needs to change. A return team penalty on the last play of the game should end the game just as an offensive penalty does.

At least the ACC took action against the refs here. However Duke fans cannot feel very good that the conference basically said that should have won the game. Maybe they will use it as extra motivation when they play North Carolina this week.