For those of you who were living under a rock for the last couple of days you missed a lot in college football, but here are some coaching/officiating debacles. The Big East's University of Syracuse (8-4, 4-3 Big East) faced off against the Big 12's Kansas State (7-6, 3-5 Big 12) in the first ever Pinstripe Bowl, held in non-other than the New Yankee Stadium. This back and forth battle continued until the final minutes of the game, where K. State down 8 with 3:07 left to play in regulation needed to score on their final drive, to keep their hopes of a bowl win alive. They did just that, Carson Coffman threw a 30 yard touchdown pass to receiver Adrian Hilburn. All of the Wildcat fans who made the trek to New York rejoiced! And so did the players, whose salute to the crowd cost them 15 yards on an excessive celebration penalty, and ended up costing them the game, and the pin stripe bowl, but was it really deserved?
Now on to the next wacky finish, The ACC's UNC (8-5, 4-4 ACC) squared off against the SEC's University of Tennessee (6-7, 3-5 SEC) in the Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl. The game was at a stand still at 17-14 from the second quarter until about 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter when UT's freshman quarterback Tyler Bray hooked up with his receiver Justin Hunter for an 8 yard touchdown pass. With the remaining time UNC had to score, but when UNC's Dwight Jones dropped a 4th down pass from his QB T.J. Yates, things looked grim for the Tar Heels. But with enough timeouts to leave time on the clock for them to score, insanity then ensued. At their own 20 UNC started their drive almost perfectly with a 28 yard from Yates to Todd Herrelson, during the catch Herrelson was absolutely DRILLED in the back of the head by UT's safety Janzen Jackson, receiving a personal foul penalty, adding an additional 15 yards onto the big gain. After a 12 yard pass to Jones again, Butch Davis' choice for another play was a run to Shaun Draughn with about 16 seconds left on the clock, and no timeouts, genius right? Shades of Les Miles when they played Tennessee? As time continued to tick off UNC's field goal team started to rush the field, while the offense still need to stop the clock, it took about 10 second for Yates and the offense to realize they should just take the five yard too many men on the field penalty, and stop the clock. Once the ball hit the ground, the refs threw their flags, but ruled the game over, and UNC loses by 3. BUT WAIT! the booth buzzes them to check the replay, and after only a few short minutes the call was just as expected (five yard penalty and 1 second was put onto the clock) with that kicker Connor Barth hit a frantic 40 yard field goal to send the game into overtime. After trading touchdowns in the first overtime, a bit of karma hit Bray when after the TD made a slashing motion across his neck to the UNC sidelines, threw an interception to give the Tar Heels just a chip shot of a field goal to win the game. History tends to repeat itself, and this game was no different.
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