Auggie
Well-known member
I don't know they wouldn't have blocked it. But the chances are greatly reduced when the attempt is from 20 yards instead of 35. You mention rules. Fair enough. My point is, in a situation like that, such a rule is a matter of interpretation. How egregious was the contact? In my view, the adults in this scenario overreacted as much as the middle school kid.
As for poor losers, Sparky, I have no skin in the game concerning Walsh. But I can say this with certainty: I have seen way more high school football games that you have, and rarely, if ever, have I seen a call as trivial in nature, particularly at a point in the game where so much was at stake. I could care less who won that game, but I think any fair-minded follower of the sport would have liked to have seen the game decided without a such a call. So, spare me the "poor loser" garbage. The only homer in this conversation is you.
1st of all I hate when refs insert themselves into the game and they should never make a call that affects the game due to something that didn't happen on the field so I tend to agree that the call shouldn't have been made unless it was grievous. This was a great game between two motivated opponents and I wish it didn't come down to this call. That being said there is probably more to the story than the Summit Country folks may be talking about.
The game is available to re-watch here. The Walsh sideline was on top of that ref and jawing with Benny players all game long. Watch the play at the 1:51:30 mark, the coach does something to make the ref throw a sideline warning flag, (Walsh announcer got the call wrong). Everyone in football knows you get 1 free pass and the next sideline infraction is a penalty. The play in question happens at the 2:28:40 mark. It appears to me that in the heat of the moment the ball boy wanted to be on the field celebrating and he cuts right in front of the ref before the guy even had time to make the TD call, (and to me it looks like nobody else was around that had to be navigated). He knew he did something wrong because he stopped and turned and looked right at the ref as well as the Walsh WR puts his hands on his helmet when he saw the flag. I am guessing that after the sideline warning the Walsh staff called this out to the players but maybe failed to mention anything to the ball boy. Either way it looked like that ref had enough of the Walsh sideline antics and since they could not follow the rules after being warned he probably had to throw the flag.