Thirty-two years after Colorado stunned Michigan with a Kordell Stewart to Michael Westbrook Hail Mary in the Big House, Michigan got a Hail Mary win of its own against Western Michigan, a 28.5-point underdog. Victory snatched from the jaws of embarrassment comes with a huge star.
The last-play pass from Bryce Underwood to JJ Buchanahan came after a highly controversial review was reversed with one second on the clock for a last-ditch effort by the home team, giving Michigan an undeserved mulligan.
The whole purpose of replay review is to correct clear and obvious mistakes made by officials on the field. In this specific case, there appeared to be no error – clear, obvious or otherwise.
The clock struck zero before the ball, which had been thrown out of the end zone, was touched.
The game was over. The last breath was a gift from the football gods to Michigan and a king’s work for a Western Michigan team that had earned the victory.
At a time when there is almost as much college football action on the court as there is on the field, Western Michigan must call Judge Wapner in an attempt to secure the upset victory that a nameless, faceless replay specialist stole from them. While there is certainly no procedure in place to correct the result, there should be – and perhaps the outcry from this result will lead to a solution to fix the clear and obvious mistakes made by the replay process in what should have been the final play of a game.
In the age of the proliferation of legalized and normalized gambling, there has to be a way to fix such a glaring error.