So it turns out there’s some Division I Football Championship Subdivision football being played this spring. The slate washed out by the coronavirus pandemic in the fall has be rejiggered to fit now.
Eastern Washington and Idaho kicked off yesterday and, predictably, one of the teams did not have its head coach. Eastern Washington’s Aaron Best missed the game. Because he tested positive for Covid-19.
Had he been around, he likely would have argued this call very vehemently. The Vandals (that’s Idaho) end up winning this game 28-21, but it’s tied at 21 early in the fourth quarter when the Eagles get robbed of three points:
Uhhh Eastern Washington’s kicker just kicked a 22-yard field goal and something happened and the ball hit the scoreboard after going through the uprights and the refs got confused and just looked around and called it no good. Holy shit this is worse than the 5th down. pic.twitter.com/apT5r9cJlD
— Graham Coffey (@DawgOutWest) February 28, 2021
Now we’re relying on the broadcast team from Swx for our information here, but I’m just going to trust them. This is a network that focuses purely on covering the two most important things: Weather and sports. They know what they’re doing. There’s no guessing here.
So I’ll take them at their word when they say this kick made it through the uprights, then donked off a scoreboard or other structure before plummeting to the turf at the Kibbie Dome.
It sure seems like the official who is supposed to be stationed under the right upright misses this entirely. Let’s sketch out some ideas for why:
- Meant to bring his KN95 mask but realized mid-game he’d grabbed the flimsy one from Old Navy with lemons printed on the front, felt embarrassed and less safe than would be optimal.
- Noticed it was February, thought he was officiating basketball, lost his bearings.
- Was asking one of the other officials, for the 38th time, if he was sure it was safe to be around all these players if their coach just tested positive for the coronavirus earlier in the week.
- Just wanted to do something that would go viral.
Spring football was always going to be tough to pull off, for a variety of reasons. Logistically, finding officials and TV cameramen and crews is not as easy as it sounds. Those people are accustomed to doing other things this time of year. Maybe they can adjust, or maybe they need to be replaced with people who have less experience — or with static cameras that don’t actually film the top of the uprights.
As with everything else for the past year, the bar has to be lowered a bit. Pulling off sports right now is difficult.
The Spokesman-Review story on this game included the following lines:
All-Big Sky receiver Andrew Boston and fellow returning starting wide receiver Johnny Edwards were absent.
Team captain and veteran linebacker Jack Sendelbach wasn’t on the field either and fellow team captain and safety Calin Criner was suited up on the sideline and not playing.
Eastern Washington’s interim coach didn’t address the absences in his post-game radio interview, according to the paper, and that’s maybe the best explanation of where we’ve gotten to: We’ve decided that players randomly missing games, potentially due to exposure to coronavirus, is just the cost of playing.
What’s a missed call or two along the way?
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