UPDATED, timestamp:
"Michigan lined up with five men on the line, three more eight yards behind them, one gunner split wide on each side and fifth-year senior punter Blake O’Neill 16 yards deep.
Michigan State was bringing the house.
...
With nine seconds left redshirt sophomore long snapper Scott Sypniewski sent a low snap toward [punter] O'Neil. With ten players against five on the line five Spartans shed their blocks almost immediately.
With eight seconds left...everything went wrong. The snap came to O'Neill just below his knees, and he dropped it. Now nine Michigan State players were headed for him."
-Michigan Daily.
UPDATED. Alternatives to Armageddon: The famed fumblerooski has been outlawed since 1992 but not these variations:
"Direct handoffs to offensive linemen are still thoroughly legal, meaning that the play can still be executed as originally devised, except the ball must be handed off instead of left on the ground to be picked up. Furthermore, since 2008, the center himself can execute the fumble and the ball will be live once the ball hits the ground."-Wiks
Ya keep da ball at da line of scrimmage dat way. Wiks says the fumblerooski failed "on very rare occasions."
UPDATED. It was 4th down and two yards to go to get a first down. Michigan was on MSU's side of the field at the 47 yard line. Harbaugh had ten fucking seconds to run a play, make the first down or fail complicatedly, time consumingly, just keep the ball near the 47 yard line. So many plays, so little time. He had to get to the MSU 45, two yards. "I know! Let's put an Australian rugby player back on our 38 yard line, center snap it 10 yards through the air...Oh! and let's not put any of our guys behind him for safety. What could go wrong?" And, MSU was rushing 11 guys, going for the block, which they would have gotten, see below, if the punter hadn't mishandled the ball. Here's the genius:
"If you go for it, you leave them with a Hail Mary opportunity," Harbaugh said. "We could protect and throw a long pass. We ran through the scenarios and felt like the best decision was to punt. They didn't have any returners. It was a matter of punting it. We messed up."
.#########
You know what, Michigan State was probably going to block that punt. There's a Michigan State player coming from the top of this image, to the kicker's left who tackles the punter two seconds after the ball is snapped. Here are some screenshots from the video.
At two seconds on this video, the ball hits the punter's hands. The player who would have blocked the punt is circled. If the punter had fielded the ball cleanly he would have gotten the kick away at the 41 or 42 yard line.
Here, at 4 seconds, the ball is loose at the 40 yard line and look at the Michigan State player! he's at the 44, if the punt had been fielded cleanly the MSU guy would not be at full charge, he would now be about to dive, extending his body in the air, arms up over his head so that they would be just a few inches shy of the 42, the anticipated point of contact between punter's foot and ball. He's three feet away, if he had dived, he would have blocked the punt if it had been kicked at the 43.
The point is, Jim Harbaugh's call was DOOMED, Michigan State was going to get that ball through block or muff at about the Michigan 40 yard line.
Here, still at 4 seconds, the MSU player, at full charge, not with body extended is at the 41 yard line about to tackle the punter who has his back turned. Clearly, if the ball had been fielded cleanly and the punter kicked it at the 41 the MSU player would have blocked it.
Doomed, Harbaugh, DOOMED! That play had no chance.
Harbaugh, you're not the same guy who's play-calling judgment was to audible away from the called play which resulted in you throwing an interception and almost getting killed by your coach in 1992, are you?
