re: Serious Question for Officials

quote:

---

The QB had his back to the line of scrimmage when he spiked the ball, therefore it's a live ball(fumble) and in play.
The fact that this play was allowed even after review is wrong on so many levels, it makes the whole thing seem totally underhanded.

---

Pretty much what happened is the ref blew the whistle and threw the flag immediately as he saw Nix drop the snap, negating the spike option. He didn’t note at the time that Nix had turned away from the LOS, turning the play into a fumble.

What replay should have done is ruled it a fumble with an inadvertent whistle resulting in no clear recovery, as play had completely stopped by the time Faucha grabbed the loose ball. Possession would have remained with AU at the spot if the initial fumble - in other words, exactly where it ended up following the IG penalty.

tl;dr - Ref blew the initial call, but the only difference would be the clock would have started running sooner, giving AU slightly less time to line up for a FG (but the game. clock would have been :27 instead of :17 since there was no penalty therefore no runoff).