Zebras screw the Orange

1:08 left, tie game, Virginia is 4th and inches inside the
Syracuse 10, SU has just used their last timeout. UVa is being
pretty brave here, most coaches would just kick the field goal for
the lead.

As they break the huddle, UVa has TWELVE PLAYERS IN THE HUDDLE.
Eleven line up while the twelth SPRINTS OFF THE FIELD, RIGHT PAST
THE FUCKING REFEREE. Fullback into the line, he gets the first
down, game over.

Before they snapped the fourth down play, the Syracuse coaches
were all doing backflips on their sideline, throwing papers in the
air, screaming at the refs, trying to draw their attention to the
illegal substitution.

There's no guarantee the Orange could have driven the length of
the field in one minute to tie or take the lead, of course, but
they should have at least gotten the chance. The zebras fucked
'em, pure and simple. I had it on TiVo, I replayed it, you can
clearly see the 12th guy sprinting off after they broke the
huddle, right past the ref. I don't know what the ref is doing
here. That is his call, his responsibility, it happened right in
front of his fucking face. The replay leaves no room for
interpretation - it was a clear violation of the rules, cut and
dried, a textbook case. You could show the video in ref's school
for "this is what a 12th man violation looks like."

Boy am I pissed. This is incredibly annoying. This isn't one of
those things where you can debate back and forth the relative
merits of a ref's judgement call, this was clearly and obviously a
horrendous fuckup. I just don't see how he screws that call up, I
really don't.