Inches Away

This is probably a poor depiction of reality, but it’s also as close as I could get. The camera angle on ESPN was literally the worst angle possible for re-creating something like this but I gave it my best shot.

Here’s Quinn Sharp’s field goal in the fourth quarter with the goal post extended up. As you can see, not all of the football is clear of my faux yellow line.

The NCAA rule book offers this explanation:

The crossbar and uprights are treated as a line, not a plane, in determining forward progress of the ball.

It goes on to say that all boundary lines are “out of bounds.”

So according to the letter of the law, I think the zebras nailed this one. Now if the posts had been about 15 feet higher,  maybe OSU could have been lent a fortuitous bounce (Lord knows they could have used one).

Alas, we all looked like this for the rest of the game.