Despite carving up Oregon's prevent defense, Wisconsin attempted to spike the ball after a long first down pass left only 2 seconds on the clock. An official review confirmed that no time remained after the spike, thereby adding a sour end to the highest scoring Rose Bowl ever.
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| Above: Russell Wilson wasn't too happy with the ruling. Photo courtesy of ESPN. |
Criticism abounded after the game's finish; not of the official's ruling, but of Wisconsin Head Coach Bret Bielema's clock management. Granted, there would've been an extra timeout had Bielema not challenged the Oregon kick returner who nearly came out of the end zone before taking a knee. However, in this situation the correct coaching call was made because it takes the offensive line's challenges into account.
First, one should understand how difficult it is to spike the ball with such little time remaining. The center is hovering over the ball, usually with a particularly curmudgeonly referee standing over him and refusing to let the center even touch the ball before the whistle. Upon the whistle, the center must wait for the quarterback's quick cadence, which loses even more time. He must then snap the ball, which becomes significantly more difficult when trying to do it as quickly as possible; if the ball is improperly snapped, Wilson will fumble it and then be unable to spike before the clock has run out. Most postgame critics failed to understand how difficult the last-second spike is. Having done it myself, I prefer to cut Wisconsin some slack.
Another one of the chief postgame sentiments that flooded forums and Facebook was that Wisconsin should have simply run another play. Many critics believe Wilson should have made an "echo" call to run the same play again, with the belief that even redundant playcalling would be a better option than attempting to spike the ball.
Unfortunately, running a no-huddle offense isn't as easy as the folks over at EA Sports might lead you to believe. Offensive lines don't automatically call protections; it actually takes time to do so. Without a properly called protection, Wilson wouldn't have had any time to find the open man in Oregon's prevent defense. With 7 or 8 defenders potentially dropping into coverage, the offensive line needs more than one second to get on the same page, because extra time will be necessary.
Spiking the ball is the necessary choice because it gives Wisconsin time to call a route combo and protection that would create the best chance to permeate the legion of Ducks guarding the endzone. Although Wilson didn't get the spike done in time, it still had a higher chance of success on the resulting play than heaving the ball blindly without calling another play.
