Assessing the Notre Dame-Stanford Controversy

(Note: I have been trying to avoid writing on Notre Dame all year, I didn't want to jinx them. Photo courtesy of SI.com)

    I was there yesterday, through all the rain, to witness a great football game. As so many games that end up close though, this game ended in a decently big controversy. In case you haven't seen yet, people were wondering if Stanford running back Stepfon Taylor scored a Touchdown in Overtime. There are the ND supporters who would rather not look at any of the evidence (in fact, who doesn't know if they aren't trying to burn it now). Also there are Stanford supporters that are going to throw a couple of rules at you, and make it seem like they got robbed.
    I know how the other side of this feels, 2005, Notre Dame and USC, you know, the Bush Push. I will say that Stanford can fairly feel that their guy TIED the game. Something no one has really pointed out, is sure Stanford may have tied the game there, but that was only to tie it up. This wasn't Stanford was only down 3 and should have won. Who knows what was going to happen in the following overtimes, especially since Stanford was about to have the disadvantage of offense first. Also, my dad brought up, if Stanford really want to win that game they had the ball with 20 seconds left and 2 time outs. Stanford wanted overtime, regardless of how the call worked out they wanted to be in that situation.
   On the Notre Dame side, the argument people throw out there is "the whistle blew." Which that doesn't matter, when a referee goes into the replay booth it doesn't matter when the whistle blows. Honestly, I can admit, there has not been many other arguments Notre Dame supporters have thrown out there.
   So where do I stand, as unbiased as I can be, you can't overturn the original call on the field with that replay. There was too many "ifs" on the replay. IF the forward progress wasn't stopped when was he down? IF he didn't drop the ball before he crossed the plane. IF his elbow didn't hit the ground before he got in. There was nothing on that replay that was CONCLUSIVE evidence of either way. Quite frankly, if the refs on the field called that a Touchdown, the play would have stood. When the refs called him short of the goal line, it should have stood. This wasn't like the guy put the ball in the end zone 6 different times and the refs were just blind. There is nothing on that replay that makes me go, "Oh man, we really robbed Stanford there." I also look at the replay and say in my head "Wow, I am not sure we stopped them, I am really glad the refs called it that way."
    The replay was inconclusive, and the refs called it how they saw it. That's football. Feel like I am biased, ask Reggie Bush in 2005.