Late Sirk TD for Duke also controversial

There was confusion before the confusion on Saturday between Duke and Miami.

The last play of Miami’s 30-27 win over Duke wasn’t the only controversial one in the final minute of the wild, ACC game.

Duke got the ball back, down 24-19, at its own 20-yard line with 1:50 in the fourth quarter and no timeouts. Quarterback Thomas Sirk completed four passes for 48 yards to move the Duke offense down the field.

The Blue Devils were also helped by three pass interference penalties on Miami’s secondary, including two by cornerback Corn Elder, who wound up being the Hurricanes’ hero on the kickoff return.

For the game, Miami was flagged 23 times for 194 yards. It was Miami fans who were upset about the officials before the crazy ending and the mistakes were made by the officials, that ACC subsequently admitted on Sunday helped Miami win the game.

Even Miami’s interim coach Larry Scott didn’t think Sirk crossed the goal line.

“They didn’t get in,” Scott told the Associated Press on Sunday.

Elder’s second penalty, while defending Duke receiver Max McCaffrey, set up Duke’s offense at first-and-10 from the Miami 11-yard line with 43 seconds left. Sirk completed a 9-yard pass to Terrence Alls to move the ball to Miami’s 2-yard line. After an injury timeout by Miami, Duke snapped the ball with 30 seconds and ran straight ahead with Sirk.

Miami linebacker Juwon Young hit Sirk at the 1-yard line and then Duke center Matt Skura pushed Sirk into the end zone. But the play had been whistled dead with Sirk’s forward progress before Skura intervened.

But the officials didn’t realized Sirk had picked up a first down on the play. The clock ran down to 14 seconds before the officials stopped the game to reset the clock to 22 seconds.

On first-and-goal from the 1, Duke snapped the ball with 9 seconds left and Sirk surged through the right side of the line on a direct snap, quarterback keep. Again, Young met Sirk at the goal line, and this time he got help from defensive back Rayshawn Jenkins.

ESPNU showed four replays, three from behind the Miami defense and one from behind the Duke offense, and neither was on the side of the field where Sirk and Young met.

When Young hit Sirk, Sirk moved to protect the ball instead of reaching out and breaking the goal line with the ball (all that is necessary for a touchdown). The official closest to Sirk, stationed on the goal line on the Miami sideline, ran in and immediately signaled touchdown.

After relatively short review, referee Jerry Magallanes confirmed the ruling on the field.

As ESPNU analyst Dan Hawkins noted during the broadcast: “The only way you could overturn that maybe is to have a camera on the other side, right on the goal line where the official had a clean shot of the ball and the goal line.”

The replay officials didn’t have that angle and Sirk’s touchdown was upheld.

If not for the finish, that would have been the talk of the game. N.C. State and North Carolina had a similar play on the goal line in 2004 which helped spur the implementation of instant replay in college football.

After what happened on the ensuing kickoff, the Sirk touchdown will likely be lost in the history books.

This story was originally published November 1, 2015 at 4:57 PM with the headline "Late Sirk TD for Duke also controversial."