It goes without saying that this was the worst day of MSU Kicker Matt Coghlin’s football career, and I can’t imagine what the young kicker is feeling right now. He missed two field goals in the first half of the game against Arizona State and then had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds. He nailed the first attempt, but it was called back after officials realized MSU, amazingly, had 12 players on the field. He then proceeded to shank the next kick, giving the Sun Devils the win in Spartan Stadium.
However, FOX’s Dean Blandino was the first (that I saw) to point out that Coghlin should’ve probably received another shot at that field goal, since it looked like #15 of Arizona State committed a penalty by leaping over the line of scrimmage after the snap. Take a look at the play here:
In his post-game press conference, Coach Mark Dantonio also noted this missed penalty, saying: “They tried to hurdle us, that should be a penalty.” Although he did note that this shouldn’t be an excuse:
Here is Blandino’s initial tweet pointing out the potential violation:
I think it’s pretty clear that this should’ve incurred a leaping penalty, and there were plenty more officiating blunders in this game we can all complain about for the next week. Anyway, on to Northwestern…
