Saturday, July 6, 2013

Moment #77: Fisher's Phantom Fumble





At several times during the week 2 game against Fordham, the Columbia offense punished itself by squandering great field position, making stupid turnovers, and generally taking its own points off the table.

But with five minutes left in the game, the Lions saw a drive die through no fault of their own. This time, the referees blew it for the Lions in a big way.

Now trailing 20-13, Columbia started a nice drive their own 20 highlighted by three runs by Marcorus Garrett for a total of 33 yards and two receptions by Louis DiNovo for a total of 28.

But on 2nd and 10 from the Ram 14, Alec Fisher was stopped for just a one yard loss... well I should say he was clearly stopped for everyone except the officials, who long after Fisher's forward progress was stopped had still not blown the whistle. The play was clearly dead, but when Fisher coughed up the ball after what seemed like an eternity in the scrum, the refs ruled it was a turnover and Fordham got the ball back at their 13.

Head Coach Pete Mangurian was livid after the play and let the officials know about it. But it was to no avail, and a very promising drive was dead.

I can think of only one other call against the Lions all season that was as bad and as damaging... but that's for another post.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jake or anyone,

New guys on campus for about 3 weeks. Any inside info would be appreciated.