Lance Taylor was working in Western Michigan's football facility the morning after Western Michigan's heartbreaking loss at Michigan when his university president called a press conference to discuss one of the most improbable and controversial finishes in college football history. "Frankly, he would probably rather be training with his kids," WMU president Russ Kavalhuna said. Western Michigan's president and head coach spent nearly an hour speaking to reporters, repeating one common theme after Big Ten officials decided to place one second back on the clock following a replay review, paving the way for Michigan's 13-12 Hail Mary win: they had accepted the Big Ten officials' ruling, and they're ready to move forward.
"I will say I've looked into this pretty closely, and I used to be a federal prosecutor," Kavalhuna said. "I don't discern anything unfair or untoward in this process. Can the process be improved by having what the viewing public sees as the same as what the reviewing officials see?
Frankly, that's not for me to decide." In a sport where the standard response to grievance is now a court filing or a public display of disdain, where schools sue conferences, conferences sue schools, and players sue everybody, Western Michigan opted for acceptance and understanding. Western Michigan may have the cleanest case for outrage, but its university president and football coach opted for peace, even after people close to the program wanted more outrage. "Our students and our coach and our university live in a world where we don't always get what we want," Kavalhuna said.
"That's an opportunity for us to show that, unlike what we see a lot in our society, where we point fingers at someone else and we say that what happened to us was bad because of someone else, even if it was, we know that those people exist in our lives, and we also know that the people we want on our teams and we want in our houses of worship and in our neighborhoods, they're the kind of people who say, 'Man, that really hurt, but we're stronger together. We're going to move forward. We can take this pain and use it to galvanize strength." Michigan won Saturday night after replay officials restored one second to the clock following an incomplete Hail Mary pass that appeared to end the game with a 12-7 Western Michigan victory.
After the Big Ten's review, Bryce Underwood was given one more shot and found JJ Buchanan in a mass of players in the front middle of the end zone for a 47-yard, game-winning touchdown as time expired — for a second time. The conference released a statement roughly two hours after the game, along with video of what its replay officials viewed, saying it determined that Broncos safety Micah Davis, a former scout team player at Michigan, leaped from an established out-of-bounds position and touched the ball with one second remaining. The burning question: Why did the game clock on NBC's television broadcast show no time on the clock?
The Big Ten said a direct shot of the stadium clock, which is synchronized with all broadcast cameras in the replay system using a strobe system 85 minutes before the game, was used in the ruling. The game clock, visible on NBC's national telecast, had already hit zero, however. It was explained that what was seen on the broadcast was not on the same synchronized clock as the replay center.
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