Example of Stupid Announcer

With around 3:00 minutes remaining in the Virginia Tech/Clemson game and Clemson losing by 11 and Virginia Tech in possession of the ball, Tech's Brandon Ore fumbles the ball deep in Clemson territory. After a scuffle for the ball, the refs declare Virginia Tech has recovered despite the fact Ore is at the bottom of the pile with 3 Clemson players. Tommy Bowden challenges the play and I thought Mike Patrick was going to have an aneurysm.

"You can't challenge that," Patrick yells out. "What is there to challenge?" He goes on to express that it was stupid to waste the timeout and that he doesn't understand what they are challenging. Apparently he doesn't believe a fumble recovery is challengeable. He questions whether they are challenging if there was a fumble. But what makes the difference if Virginia Tech recovered? Todd Blackledge remains silent throughout this entire embarassing episode.

Here is why Patrick is an idiot: 1) Clemson is down by 11 with only 2 timeouts and under 3 minutes remaining in the game. The clock would continue running if Ore recovered so Bowden needed to save time and call a timeout anyway. 2) Ore was surrounded by 3 players and the replay shows the ball ended up in Ore's legs. Perhaps the replay could show a Clemson player in clear possession and Bowden challenged before Virginia Tech could run a play since the replay booth clearly didn't have time to see it yet. 3) Clemson was desperate anyway. Maybe they get lucky. What's the harm?

I was just amazed by how adamant Mike Patrick was in his criticism of Bowden. And I believe he was completely incorrect in what he believed was not a reviewable play. If replay clearly shows possession by Player 1 and Player 1 is down and the ball is stripped from him after he has possession and is shown down, then Player 1's team would have possession of the ball. I don't believe Patrick even considered this in his diatribe. But this once again illustrates my belief that announcer's 1) don't consider other views; 2) don't pay attention to the game; and, 3) don't understand the rules.