Richt gets his explanation from Steve Shaw about the intentional grounding penalty.
Meanwhile, Richt said he heard back from the SEC office on the intentional grounding call, which he had expressed concern about. Quarterback Hutson Mason’s pass hit a South Carolina defensive end, according to Richt, so he asked the SEC office why grounding was called.
The answer Richt got, he said, was that there was “no reasonable chance” of Georgia fullback Quayvon Hicks, the intended receiver, to catch the ball. The pass being tipped by a defensive player doesn’t necessary preclude an intentional grounding call, according to the SEC.
If you watch the replay…
… it’s hard to disagree. That ball is thrown at a spot from where Hicks was long gone.
And, boy, that’s a worthless play fake.
Get The Picture 
If he’d have actually made the pitch, we’d been better off
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It’s funny, but watching the replay, I thought the same thing.
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One of the other posters has found that the SEC response quoted the old rule. The new rule does not require the receiver to have “a reasonable chance” to catch the ball, just be in the area. Also, Mac suggested that Mason may very well have been outside the tackle box (look at the replay–it’s close) and the ball, if not tipped, would have crossed the line of scrimmage. The SEC refs , Shaw in particular, need to get their story straight.
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I’m gonna disagree there. The pass definitely would have been in the vicinity. Right at Hicks’ feet for sure, but in the vicinity.
I love how the refs can look into a hypothetical future and judge “reasonable chance” that quickly.
Such Georgia. So Richt…
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But his arm angle, the motion, etc., look like he’s just slinging the ball at the turf. Combined with ending up in the turf too…it’s an obvious call.
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+1000. No way Hicks catches that ball, and Hutson’s throwing motion was a dead giveaway. QB’ing 101: throw it out of the back of the endzone.
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Throwing it out of the endzone would also have been grounding. There was no receiver in the endzone, and Mason was inside the tackle box. He needed to throw it to the right of the DE, toward where Hicks was going. It’s debatable whether it would have landed in the area of Hicks or Conley, but it is not debatable that his intent was to ground the ball. IAAGM is right, HM lost the benefit of the doubt by his motion. Mason avoids sacks with his itchy trigger finger, but it hurt us on both 1st and 3rd down there. On 3rd, he quickly checked down from the corner route and threw at his #2 option, Bennett camped at the 5 yd line with 4 defenders around him. Bobo should ‘splain why #82 wasn’t in the endzone, especially after the 2012 SECCG, but it was a terrible decision by Mason. Even if the pass wasn’t batted up, and Bennett caught it, there was no way he would score. If Mason had checked his #3 option, it was (fittingly) #3 Gurley WIDE ASS OPEN OVER THE MIDDLE.
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IIRC, throwing it out of the end zone would not be grounding in that the ball would have crossed the line of scrimmage. But, my memory of the rules seems to get worse every year (I blame the NCAA), so I might be wrong there.
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This was a spike under pressure. Instant grounding call. The ball wasn’t thrown at Hicks’ feet, nowhere in the vicinity. I think the announcers were right: “inexperience.”
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It wasn’t near Hicks’ feet because it was tipped by the defender. That’s indisputable to me, and it’s BS to theorize where it would have been.
That’s not to say that Mason couldn’t have done a MUCH better job getting rid of it.
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Not just getting rid of it; completing the pass. This play came down to athelticism…
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Sorry, athleticism and confidence.
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I did not get why he did not side arm it to the right when the play happened.
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It’s ashamed a game comes down to a level where we have to wonder if this could’ve changed things. Seems reasonable, but in a game that ends this close, we’re going to wonder. Whether intentional grounding or not, it was a bad decision. Time to move on from this one.
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Sure, hindsight is 20/20 so its easy for Shaw to say that, but I’d like to know if the refs actually discussed whether it was “catchable” at the time. And don’t quarterbacks throw it at the feet of receivers all the time to get away with “grounding”? Still a bullshit call.
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Play some respectable defense and this isn’t an issue. You CANNOT give up 38 on the road to an SEC team, much less a Spurrier team, and expect to win.
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+1000
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Yes you can, if you score 39 or more. That is what the game has become. If the Dawgs had scored a TD on that drive they would have won the game 42-38. Personally, I am old school. I like winning games 14-7, 10-3, 7-0, scores like that. But that is no longer going to happen. All the rules changes made in the last 10+ years favor the offense. You can only tackle above the knees and below the head-neck area now. Grabbing a ball carrier by the back of the shoulder pads is now a 15 yard penalty (Q: How are you supposed to tackle a runner who is past you?). Even a little bump going for the ball is called pass interference. Accidentally hitting the QB or receiver in the head will get you thrown out of the game plus a 15 yard penalty. No wonder the offenses run amok. But that is the new reality. It’s arena football–get used to it.
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you honestly think the D could have stopped them on their next drive if we had scored?
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The Georgia D did a better job in the second half after Pruitt made some halftime adjustments so yes I do. The Dawgs D stopped ’em the previous series by intercepting the ball.
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Really? What has Bama’s defensive PPG been over the past 5 years?
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I dunno and I am not going to look it up. I do know, however, that Georgia beat UT in 2012 51-44, beat Nebraska that same season in the bowl 45-31, beat LSU last year 44-41, beat Tech last year 41-34 and beat Tech by a similar score of 42-34 in 2010, beat South Carolina 41-37 in 2009 and also beat Arkansas 52-41 in ’09. Those are just a few from our school’s recent history. My recollection of the 2012 SECCG against Bama is that Georgia was at the Bama 5 yard line when time ran out with the score 32-28 in favor of Bama. If we had made the other 5 yards we would have won that game over Bama 35-32.
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I don’t understand why Mason was surprised he had that DE back there with him. If he knew the play he would have seen that he wouldn’t be blocked. Seems as though he should have had a plan in his head for what happens if the DE doesn’t go with the fake.
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This is what I don’t get. Why designs a play where the right tackle stumbles around like a crazy person on the inside looking for someone to block….all the while letting the DE run free?
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Well, the tackle is selling the fake, seems to me, and that’s why he does that. But Mason has to execute the play. He makes a bad fake, is surprised by the end in his face, and throws the ball into the ground rather than throw it away or make a move around the DE. Mason made it look like it was the first time he’d run the play. Absolutely awful. He’s the one who butchered the play–not the OL. No one else. Wet ball, whatever.
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Exactly. The play action as well as the blocking scheme is meant to sell the run and cause the DE to crash inside. If Mason doesn’t make such a pathetic fake then the DE is likely a few more steps inside, opening up the passing lane to Hicks. The worst part of the play is the PA.
That having been said, the SEC is just making shit up here. How do they know where the ball would have been if it wasn’t tipped? You can’t officiate based on conjecture. Besides the fact that the rule says that if its tipped then it isn’t grounding – end of story.
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My thought exactly. I thought tipped =incomplete.
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That’s not the case. Tipped doesn’t negate the grounding call. I still think grounding was the right call, but it was especially the right call when you consider what the official was working with. Whether the ball was tipped or not, everything in Mason’s body language indicated that he was just trying to get rid of the ball. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, except that body language can influence how something is perceived by another human being, and Mason looked like he was grounding the ball. He threw the ball side armed with his body not even facing Hicks. Look at his shoulders, for pete’s sake…they’re practically pointed back at the left hash mark. I don’t blame an official at all for calling grounding on that. He would’ve been better off to have flung the ball off to the right and made it seem like he was trying to lead Hicks.
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It isn’t illegal to ground the ball. It’s illegal to do it in a certain way.
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Right. It’s illegal to do it the way he did it.
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I’ve come around to feel that playaction could have been an ok call there, but not that slow developing toss action. Even if Mason sells it better, the DE shouldn’t bite because he has no chance of helping on the short side of the field. If this play is run somewhere outside the redzone, the backside DE might bite and peel back because he would have clean up duty on a cutback downfield. But at the goal line, the toss to the short side would either be a TD, a quick stop, or Gurley reversing his field (like that 3rd and 16 earlier). The DE’s only responsibility is to stay home. Compare the toss playaction scheme to the off-tackle play action scheme on the Rome TD to start the 4th quarter. The action goes right at that DE, and he has no choice but to respect the run. I would have been happy if we had just called that same play again. At least HM would have had 3 options, instead of just our fullback who has 5 career receptions and none this year.
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Correct on all points and the other points made in this group of posts. Those points are all why the call was such a bad call.It wasn’t just to not run with Gurley that was the bad decision. It was the pass play itself that was a bad call, too.
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I have no problem with the IG call. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s close enough to be a duck even if it’s a goose. To continue the metaphor, I think the SC DE was hollering “Duck, duck!” at Mason, who in reply yelled “Goose!” when he heaved the ball. Although “heave” seems a generous description of that Monty Burns-like effort.
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Except that officials are supposed to, you know, enforce the actual rules instead of deciding what they think “is a duck”. What you are in fact talking about is exactly what is so shitty about SEC officiating.
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The rule does not say that if it is tipped, there is no grounding. It also does not say anything about “no reasonable chance” to catch the ball.
The actual language of the applicable rule, Rule 7, Sec. 3, Art. 2(h), states:
A forward pass is illegal if:
…
h. The passer to conserve yardage throws the ball forward into an area where there is no eligible Team A receiver (A.R. 7-3-2-I).
[Exception: If the passer is or has been outside the tackle box he may throw the ball so that it crosses or lands beyond the neutral zone or neutral zone extended (Rule 2-19-3) (A.R. 7-3-2-VIII-X). This applies only to the player who controls the snap or the resulting backward pass.]
PENALTY [f-h]—Loss of down at the spot of the foul [S36 and S9].
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nice research but it is incomplete research. You completely leave out the part about it (the pass) being tipped..If the pass is tipped there is no grounding and the morons in the officiating crew do not get to speculate about “a reasonable chance of completion”(BS). Let’s be honest the SEC is covering for their officials who clearly just did not see that the pass had been touched. I didn’t see it until I saw a reverse angle replay. This was the functional equivalent of bouncing the ball off an opposing player when your falling out of bounds in a basketball game. It was not grounding “by rule”.
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Can you point to the rule section that says that? I do not think it exists. I believe you are confusing grounding with pass interference, which is negated by a tipped pass.
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The closest I can find in the rule book is Approved Ruling 7-3-2(VII) which provides:
VIII. Quarterback A10 sprints toward a sideline and is outside the tackle boxwhen he throws a legal forward pass that is batted down by a defensive
lineman and lands behind the neutral zone. RULING: Legal play.
Without the batting the ball would have landed beyond the neutral zone,
so A10 has satisfied the spirit of the rule.
This doesn’t say that batting the ball automatically negates te grounding. It depends on where the ball would have landed without the batting. Applying this reasoning to our 1st and goal, the referee has to determine whether the ball would have landed in the area of an eligible receiver if it had not been deflected. I think that is a close call, and it is certainly debatable. To me, it definitely would have been behind Hicks. The correct ruling depends on how big the “area” is.
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How does anyone know where that ball was headed before it was deflected? Since when does uncatchable = grounding?
I thought that the ball had to be thrown in the “area” of an eligible receiver. To say that the ball would not have been in the area of hicks is speculative because the ball travels almost no distance before being redirected:
I gave the ref a pass in real time because I assumed he missed the tip. They should have just admitted it was the wrong call on replay.
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So personally I don’t know exactly how I feel about the call. On the one hand Hutson was clearly ditching the ball and did it turribly. And our defense should have played better so this wouldn’t be the ONE PLAY everyone freaks out about after the game. But on the other hand that does seem like a ticky-tacky interpretation of the rule which ends with us getting screwed.
However, no matter how you feel about the call it’s pretty easy to see that admitting it was the wrong call would bring way too much ire on the refs in question and would put the SEC in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to defend their (sad) referees. Which we all know they won’t do. So instead of honest answers you get kinda questionable ones.
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Two comments…firstly, I don’t have any problem with the grounding call. I thought it was the right call live, and I’ve thought it was the right call after every replay I’ve seen. I’m more concerned about the imaginary holding call which robbed UGA of seven points. Does anyone know if the NCAA has lied about that call yet?
And secondly, I really like Conley. He is a DGD of the first order, but this quote is bad:
“I hear so many things on the outside from people who have never played a snap of football, and if they did play, they played 50 years ago,” Conley said. “There’s a bunch of people who like to comment and say things, and we respect them and we love them because they’re fans, but they honestly don’t know the gameplan or what we’re doing.
It’s another comment from the “in the arena” category. Those are fine as far as they go, but don’t insult fans and then tell them how much you respect them. Furthermore, I guess he is throwing Richt under the bus with the rest of us fans since he has admitted multiple times that he’d hand it to Gurley if he had to do it all over again.
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Don’t let comments of a college kid get to you….it is that easy. That and what he said is mainly true….
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Umm…what is “that easy”?
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+1. Likewise, I didn’t have a problem with the IG penalty at the time, nor have I since. I thought it was IG immediately, before we saw the flag. The holding call is much different, but I’ve yet to go back and look at it, except that it seemed clear at the time it couldn’t have been Kublanow. I’d like to hear something from the SEC about that one.
The thing about the play is it was a stupid call. It may or may not be a good play, doesn’t matter, it was a bad call for that situation. That bothers me much more than the execution or what Mason did or didn’t do, all of which is valid.
But as we discussed yesterday at length, the reason you don’t call a play like that in that situation is so those kinds of things can’t happen.
The smart call is your RB if you have a good one, and it doesn’t have to be Todd Gurley. Like Richt said, even giving it to Chubb would have been a good call in that situation. But if you have Gurley, to expose yourself to unnecessary risks is about the same as unnecessarily risking taking points off the board.
With 3 downs to work with, Gurley is not going to be denied. And we have plenty of good downhill plays that get Gurley to the edge or perimeter where all he needs is the smallest space.
So it was a stupid call. And I’m happy Richt has admitted it, as he’s come as close to saying that as he possibly can in public. His acknowledgement helps, at least it helps me.
~~~
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You don’t have a lot of time to think in that situation. It was a mistake. If the USCe DE took the fake and Mason threw for an easy TD there wouldn’t even be a conversation about this, so part of the reason it didn’t work was good play by South Carolina. Water under the bridge. Let’s put it behind us.
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Which is the biggest reason why, in that situation, you don’t call a play like that in the first place. Unnecssary risk, along with interception, pass-block holding, sack, and the rest, when there are better options.
Can’t speak for how others would’ve reacted, but not me. I would’ve said we took an unnecessary chance and got away with, and threw away any chance we had to run time off the clock to boot.
~~~
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I’ve never been in an arena bigger than a school yard at PE, so I won’t go as far as you did in your criticism. The play could have worked. If it had, we’d all be saying what a great call it was. But it didn’t, and it isn’t what I would have called. I would have given it to Gurley – four times, if necessary. Having said all of that, I agree with the Mayor above. It’s water under the bridge. I’ve purposefully not read any comments on the posts in the last couple of days. I’m just wading back in today. The kind of back-and-forth that goes on after a tough loss like doesn’t appeal to me.
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I think for some it helps to air it out and vent. It does for me. But I think we’ve about wound it up for now. Nothing more to be said, really.
~~~
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The playcalling on the ensuing 2nd and 3rd down was just as abysmal. The Gurley run on 2nd and Goal from the 14th was even more obvious at that point because 1st down backfired on us so badly. None of our receivers were even near the goal line on the 3rd and goal. If it wasn’t tipped, we had no chance to score anyways.
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The officials weren’t biased, just incompetent. They made several terrible calls on both sides. WTF was that chop block penalty on Sackerlina on OUR interception return? Bad calls all around.
And yeah, that wasn’t the best play fake.
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Someone needs to help Mason with his fake. On this play he holds the ball up high for a second to show everyone he still has it. He needs to pitch it low with very little follow through.
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If he had popped the pass over the defender, that was a TD for sure.
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All of the above is correct: yes he meant to ditch the ball, yes the rule should be enforced as written and not over ridden by conjecture, yes it was a bad fake, yes Mason should have had a better plan to ditch it if Dixon didn’t take the misdirection, yes there was a safer call that was as good as this one, yes it wouldn’t have mattered if the defense had played better, yes Shaw should grow a pair and get his officials to be better and more consistent, yes our fans should look forward and temper their negative attitudes more in their comments, etc. etc.
But keeping perspective, the vast majority here said they wouldn’t be upset with losses against decent teams if we played competitively and went all out in the effort. This was a disappointing loss by three points on the road that hurts more because there are so many ways it could have had a different result. The good news is we aren’t eliminated, and have as good a chance as anyone to win the East, the bad is that if we don’t find a way to cover some of the exposed weaknesses from Saturday we don’t deserve to be in Atlanta. Sniping at each other and blasting players and coaches isn’t the right way to get to where we want to be. This forum isn’t as destructive as the UGA message boards I see but we have our share of those who add to the lack of a unified front which is needed to be all that we can be. We have so much to enjoy but insist on focusing on what isn’t perfect. To some, not winning the proverbial national title means you have failed. I see some encouraging signs of us getting better both on the field, and in recruiting, but you have to wonder about the impact of all the public lynchings that are becoming our trademark.
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Mac I don’t disagree with anything you say, nothing.
But, this forum will, by its very nature, attract knee-jerk reactions, trolls and just general angst from fans of varying understanding of the technical game.
Bluto does a very good job of trying to present his point of view in a reasoned way, but most folks don’t react to getting beat in a rational, reasoned way.
What continues to amaze me is the way normally rational folks, most of them parents, react to these kids and coaches, who are the arbiters of all our dreams.
What the worst of us are really saying is that “damn son, wish you had not made that mistake” but we love you anyway.
Sometimes that last part gets lost in the telling.
I hope it is obvious that more than anything said here, the danger I see to the game and to those arbiters is the incessant and most times nonsensical analysis that fills the air now almost constantly. Paul Finebaum gets a lot of flack, but he is no worse than Mark May, or Herbie or any of the rest of these Bozos who have the consumate gaul to second guess these earnest arbiters of my damn dreams.
Every block, every tackle, every play call, every play is explained, interpreted by every expert in the known air world. We poor bastards can not possibly be unaffected by this.
It is theater of the absurd. It is dangerous to the kids, the coaches and most of all to us fans who give, every waking day, our devotion and love to this game.
Last week is done, lets get on with this thing.
And lets not lose sight of the fact that these kids and coaches are the arbiters of our fucking dreams because we want them to be, because we beg them to be.
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Well said Mac and Scorp. With the anonymity of the internet people will write what they would not say in person. I don’t read comments after a loss because of the tearing apart of our players and coaches. It is detrimental to our team and to recruiting. Some fans are cannibals with their comments. Just because you can write something does not mean you should. Conley is very intelligent and we should heed what he says. Constructive criticism is ok by the type of posts I saw all over FB and some here are nothing more than ugliness. I am glad people are back to intelligently commenting.
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“It is detrimental to our team and to recruiting.” Not just to the kids and team, Debby, but detrimental to ourselves. What you do when you spout the hate and point fingers is comment on your own inadequacy…your fears and self-worth.
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Senator can you answer this for me I haven’t heard anyone ask or comment on it……Why does Todd Gurley get tired after 3 or 4 plays, I don’t understand? Is it that he is just not in great shape or is it that he has a high metabolism like Knowshon did and just can’t stay on the field long?
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Speaking of ticky tack, no one has approached this from the question of where Mason threw the ball from. In the GIF above look at where the RT is lined up and how far Mason moves to away from the hash mark the ball was thrown from. It is pretty close to being “outside the tackle box” which means the ball has to have also been judged to not reach the line of scrimmage. More difficult to say that ball would not have reached the four yard line if not deflected.
I have no love for the intentional grounding rule on several fronts but usually the QB is allowed more latitude on passes around the LOS. They often ditch covered screen passes into the turf. No question this one was an intent to get rid of the ball, but so many other allowances are made that, given the circumstances, this was a call that is usually let slide. If you are going to say we have to enforce the rule, then enforce the 100% the letter of the rule which says a deflected pass exempts a grounding call. It isn’t judgmental for the officials…except in the SEC I suppose.
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I had not considered that until you broached it my scotch-man, but this is a valid additional bone to pick in the aftermath. To my eyes, he is clearly outside of the RT which leands ever more creedence to the opinion that the call was bogus. But whatevs, the blown “holding” was much more damaging. Onward to the Little Trojans.
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If that’s the standard, then I want them to start calling grounding every time someone throws a screen pass at the running back’s feet when it’s covered.
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Here here, Bro. 3 of the other personalities authorized me to say they agree, too. That’s a total of 5 of us saying that.
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I found this explanation of the rule when the rule was changed in 2011 at http://www.refstripes.com/forum/index.php?topic=8115.0. “In 2011, the rule for intentional grounding (Rule 7-3-2-f and –h) has been changed. There is still a foul for intentional grounding if no eligible Team A player is in the vicinity of the pass, but the foul no longer carries the requirement that the receiver have a reasonable opportunity to catch the pass.”
That is the exact opposite of what is being said here by the SEC
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Also another strike against the SEC PR machine.
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I my be imagining it but wasn’t Hutson called for intentional grounding in the Clemson game too? All he had to do was throw it out of the endzone. He looked like he was spiking it. We are going to get plenty of chances to miss Aaron this year. I’m glad Hutson is getting his turn but if he is the best QB we’ve got we are in trouble for a few years. He does not scare the other team and they tee off on him. It could be a long year.
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I just watched the replay for the 20th time and realized that if Hudson floats the ball out to the H-back the play is still coming back because our wide receiver blocked the hell out of the USC nickel back. the collision was not incidental its a block,a good block, but not a “rub”. That play gets called back even if completed. If the SEC can speculate so can I ,thank you very much Make the damn field goal. Mark May wishes he was a penish.
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It was a block, a good block, and a legal block. The pass would not have crossed the neutral zone. Conley is allowed to block there, even if the ball is in the air.
Rule 7, Sec. 3, Art. 9(d):
d. Pass interference rules apply only during a down in which a legal forward pass crosses the neutral zone (Rules 2-19-3 and 7-3-8-a, b and c). .
I agree, make the damn field goal. Stop the damn SC offense. Just get better.
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so you can block down field if the pass is behind the line…..I guess that explains what goes on in those flanker screens ,thanks for the info In regards to the grounding exchange, so even if hitting a defender is not in the rule book ,where the hell is “no reasonable chance” of being a catch.. They’re just making excuses for the fact that the refs didn’t notice the touch. The SEC is circling the wagons to protect the product and apparently that includes the refs
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Good call. Bad call. Poorly executed. Well executed. Game plan or not. Does not matter one iota. Three tings can happen when you pass, and two of em are bad. RTDB.
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First time I have actually seen the play. Damn, it looks worse than I even thought it would.
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Just saw the holding call that called back Gurley’s touchdown was not a valid call according to the review. So we really won the game the touchdown should have stood and we win be 4 points.
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Where’d you see that, Debby?
~~~
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I would have liked to see them run the P44 Haynes in that situation.
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