OMG - UMich just pulled the horns trick!

Seems like we know about that. Landry Jones vs Texass comes to mind. Lucky it didn't turn out the same.

 

As predicted, the UMich punter getting hammered on social media including death threats. "Fans" are effin morons and technology has given them a public forum to prove it.

 

Because threatening the life of a kid playing as a punter while also attending college and getting his degree is totally reasonable. You're right -- people are bat**** crazy.

 

Stunned Aggie is in grad school at Michigan?

 

I wonder if it would have happened the same way if the kid wasn't a rugby-style punter. With the way those guys toss the ball out to the side, it was right there for the Michigan State guy to catch it on the run.

 

I was watching this game at the Mandalay Bay sports book in Las Vegas. There had been lots of cheering during the game from fans of both teams. You should have heard the roar when this played happened. And it went on and on too. Unbelievable.

 

And here is yet another take on it, muffed snap notwithstanding, the punter, Blake O'Neill, should have had time to get off some kind of kick but . . .

. . . and i don't know where the blame should go for this, Michigan was in the wrong formation, considering the circumstances.

The formation was what has become a fairly normal modern punt look: three protectors behind a five-man front with two gunners. Problem is, that formation is designed to get out and cover more than to lock in and protect. Given the time on the clock (10 seconds) and the fact that all 11 Spartans were crowding the line of scrimmage to go for the block, this was a problem.

Not only did Michigan fail to adjust its formation, it failed to adjust its blocking from that formation. A least a couple of the linemen got brief chip blocks and then released downfield – to cover nothing. There was nobody back to return the kick.

“They should have all stayed in to protect,” Derek Rackley (Big 10 football analyst) said. “And if you’ve got to hold, hold. A holding penalty in that situation is not a big deal. If you have to grab them and rip them down to the ground, do it.”

Instead, Michigan released to cover nobody. And O’Neill dropped the snap.

 

A holding call in that situation does complicate things a bit. Had the punter just fallen on the ball, it would have been a 57 yard FG attempt which was out of range for the MSU kicker (10mph headwind reported). A holding call followed by a dropped snap might have made a 47 yard FG doable. A very low odds thing, and not really something they could consider given the time to make decisions, but just stating that a holding call is not "free".

However, time runs off the clock and is not put back on a holding call (a hole in the rules, IMO). Given that situation, they indeed should have held like crazy in order to get the punt off. I wonder what happens then if they get it punted and the clock goes to zero? Game can't end on a defensive penalty, but it can on an offensive penalty (and often does). In this case, they would be fine and dandy with the offense since the penalty occurs before the change of possession.