xii · football
Why We Lost the Sideline, and Why I Still Hear a Fourth-and-1 from 2009
Cal Splitter watched Morris and Rodriguez wait on a salt shed and thought about a yard he did not get.
I was standing in a press box that smelled like coffee and damp wool when the replay died and a county building appeared on the cart. Eric Morris did not move. Rich Rodriguez did not move. I moved, because I always move when a yard is in question.
There was a fourth-and-1 in 2009 that I still have. I will not name the school. I will not name the back. I will say the ball was spotted with a confidence I have not felt since, and the official under that hood today had the same face as the man who told me I had not made it.
This is not about Oklahoma State at West Virginia, except that it is Saturday and league play has started and two first-year-in-this-particular-job coaches were asked to wait on road salt. Morris came from North Texas last winter. Rodriguez is in his second tour in Morgantown. Neither of them asked me about 2009. That is their right.
The ruling stood. Incomplete. Third down. I wrote it down. I still think I got the yard.