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Frustrated Tigers fall in 7 OTs at Texas A&M
Published 8:36 am Sunday, November 25, 2018
Orgeron left fuming over late reviews
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — So Hullaba what in the heck was that?
An inch or two here. One measly second there. Review this, forget that. One step, two steps?
Hey, it all adds up.
It finally added up to the highest-scoring game in FBS history Saturday night, tied the record for college football’s longest game with seven seemingly never-ending overtime periods and LSU likely shattered the school record for what-ifs as its frustration level went through the roof.
But, for all the flirtations, it never quite added up to a 10-victory season for the Tigers as a bizarre, nutty and somewhat controversial night ended up with LSU staggering off the field with a 74-72 loss to Texas A&M.
Yes, in seven overtimes.
All over one measly second.
LSU head coach Ed Orgeron insisted there shouldn’t have even been even one overtime — although he had questions about that one, too — let alone the unlucky seven for the Tigers. (9-3, 5-3 SEC) That one finally ended with A&M quarterback Kellen Mond’s 2-point conversion pass to Kendrick Rogers. LSU had scored early in the top of the seventh but had failed on the required 2-point try.
LSU had already celebrated presumed victory twice, but that was in the nutty final minute of regulation and both were cut short and didn’t hold up after further review.
The Tigers could have run out the clock after Grant Delpit’s apparent interception with under a minute to play, but the pick was waved off when a replay review ruled that Mond’s knee was down after he bobbled the snap before throwing the pick.
That was unlucky — a “sack” benefitting the sacked team.
What happened next, Orgeron said, was “very unfair to our football team.”
The Tigers celebrated again moments later when the clock struck zero on Mond’s desperation spike — except that yet another review showed the clock should have stopped with 1 second remaining and officials gave the Aggies one more play.
Mond had completed a 22-yard pass to Kendrick Rogers with three seconds to play and A&M out of time outs to set up the game-tying play.
The clock stops in that instance, but only long enough to move the chains.
Mond used that lone second to tie the game 31-31 with a 19-yard pass to Davis and the overtime processions began.
From the sideline tight end Foster Moreau assumed the game was over after the spike.
LSU practices it every Thursday, he said — “winning edge,” they call it.
“Our winnning edge states that if there’s three or less seconds you’re not able to spike the ball,” Moreau said. “I haven’t read the rule. But our coaches seem to know what they’re talking about. That’s what we all thought on the sideline. We saw three seconds — we thought the game should have been over there.”
“Obviously it didn’t go that way, but we should have finished the game out regardless.”
Orgeron confirmed the “winning edge” theory, at least the way he understood it.
“We’ve been told that with three seconds you can’t kill it,” Orgeron insisted. “They tried to kill it and the clock went down to zero. How they put another one second on the clock remains to be seen, but that’s one second that, in my opinion , should never have been put up.
“That was very unfair that it happened to our football team. We battled the whole time. We fought, fought, we kept on fighting, but in my opinion that one second should never have been put back up.”
LSU was held to Cole Tracy’s 50-yard field goal leading off the first overtime, but almost celebrated when Mond’s pass to Jace Sternberger was quickly ruled incomplete instead of a fumble that Delpit recovered.
“Was it a fumble when I hit the tight end?” Delpit said. “Who knows?
I thought the guy caught and ran with the football. I thought the game was over. They said it wasn’t.
If the play was reviewed, officials never stopped the game to announce it.
Orgeron pleaded his case from the sideline.”
“I asked them,” he said. “They tell me, coach, we’re reviewing it. Ask them about it.”
So, the two teams played on … and on … and on, matching field goals or touchdowns while combining to score 84 points after regulation had ended.
The sour ending spoiled not only Joe Burrow’s three touchdown passes, but also his 100 yards rushing (despite being sacked six times) and three rushing touchdowns.
“Really want to know?” Orgeron said. “I just feel bad for the young men. I just feel that clock ran down to zero … that one second should have never been put back on the clock”
Texas A&M 74 | LSU 72