King Kaufman's Sports Daily

If a player fumbles and no ref calls it, has he really fumbled? And other deep bowl-game thoughts.

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Jan. 3, 2006 | The strangest play I saw on Monday didn't even happen, officially. That seemed somehow appropriate on a New Year's Day-plus-one that featured six bowl games played more or less for the heck of it.

Here's what happened. In the Fiesta Bowl, with Notre Dame down 21-13 late in the third quarter, safety Tom Zbikowski picked up an apparent fumble by Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio State and raced 89 yards for a touchdown to make it a two-point game pending the conversion.

But the play was called back for a holding penalty on the return, and then the replay official reversed the whole thing, ruling that Gonzalez had never caught the pass in the first place. It was incomplete, not a fumble. So that touchdown really, really didn't count.

Which is too bad because Zbikowski had fumbled on the 1-yard line and the officials had missed it. How I would have loved to watch Ohio State fans go crazy in the wake of a Notre Dame comeback victory, the key play of which was a touchdown that shouldn't have been. Instead Ohio State kicked a field goal on the next play and went on to a relatively easy 34-20 win.

Nothing against Ohio State fans. I'd have enjoyed seeing fans go crazy regardless of the teams involved. I just love seeing fans get apoplectic over things like that.

Zbikowski, all alone as he completed his run, humbly dropped the ball as he crossed the goal line. Only he clearly dropped it a full step before scoring.

As I write this I'm looking at a paused image on my TV. Zbikowski's left foot is on the ground at the 1, his right foot is in midstep, level with his left, and he's headed at about a 45-degree angle to the right, starting the process of circling around to face the field after scoring. The ball, which he dropped, rather than spiking, is out of his hand, having fallen to about midthigh, a foot or so below his left hand.

When I press play, the ball and Zbikowski's right foot hit the turf at the same time, about a yard into the end zone. There are physics going on there that make it pretty much impossible for him to have crossed the line before dropping the ball.

I've seen prematurely celebrating players fumble the ball shy of the end zone -- most famously Leon Lett of the Dallas Cowboys in the 1992-season Super Bowl -- but I don't think I've ever seen a player drop the ball as though he'd scored when he hadn't yet scored.

The second strangest play I saw happened earlier in the same game, and no the Fiesta Bowl wasn't the only game I watched Monday. It was the only game I was really interested in, two very powerful, very big-time teams with exciting offenses. But I did watch Georgia vs. West Virginia in the Sugar Bowl, moved from New Orleans to Atlanta this year because of Hurricane Katrina damage, out of a sense of professional duty.

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