The Cal Golden Bears and No. 11 Texas Longhorns played a wacky college football game late on Saturday night that ended in wacky, controversial fashion.
With Cal leading 50-43 and 1:30 to go in the fourth quarter, running back Vic Enwere went right up the middle into the open field for a touchdown run of over 50 yards. Except… Enwere pulled the old “drop the ball before crossing the goal line” move, so no touchdown. How does this still happen?
Controversy in Berkeley after this happened…again.
But Cal takes out No. 11 Texas, 50-43 pic.twitter.com/9yzjnkL4qt
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) September 18, 2016
Well, it was ruled that there was “no immediate recovery” of the ball, and Cal was given the ball at the one-yard line, where they could then run out the clock. That ruling is pretty debatable, as a Texas player did soon pick up the ball:
“no immediate recovery” THIS TEXAS GUY LITERALLY HAS THE BALL pic.twitter.com/56sMyWARrE — Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) September 18, 2016
How immediate does the recovery have to be. Ole boy snatches this up pretty quick pic.twitter.com/Jzq6TXFr6Q — Barton Simmons (@bartonsimmons) September 18, 2016
Official: “No immediate recovery” Everybody: The ball was still moving in the end zone Official: It’s late#TEXvsCAL — George Wrighster (@georgewrighster) September 18, 2016
A few things here:
1. Cal deserves to lose the ball there for such a boneheaded play.
2. But, when you allow 50 points (Texas), you deserve to lose the game.
3. Even if Texas gets the ball, they may not score a touchdown. So while it was a controversial finish, the end result may have been the same regardless. Either way, if the ball should’ve belonged to Texas, they deserved the opportunity to try to tie the game.
It’s just lame to have such a wild, exciting game end with so much uncertainty.
As our own Andrew Bucholtz put it:
That Texas-Cal ending is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in football in a long time.
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) September 18, 2016
[ESPN]
