ALTOONA, Pa. -- You know something is really fishy when even a gambling website doesn't agree with the call, and decides to refund money to losing bettors.
That's exactly what DraftKings did last year after the bogus 2-point conversion call in overtime gave Indiana a 36-35 win over Penn State in the season opener in Bloomington.
For those who may have forgotten:
DraftKings is refunding all ML straight bets on Penn State after the controversial OT call on the Indiana two-point conversion.
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) October 25, 2020
The company says that bets will be refunded in the form of site credits within 24 hours.
I was in Bloomington covering the game, along with current DK Pittsburgh Sports colleague Jarrod Prugar, and have watched the replay about 100 times of Michael Penix Jr. stretching the ball toward the goal line.
The ball was out of bounds. It looks obvious to me. It did from the very first replay I saw, and nothing has ever changed that. Here's a good photo of the play from the TV screen shot.
Abby Drey from the Centre Daily Times shot this tremendous photo that was picked up by The Associated Press.
The call on the field was that Penix scored for the 2-point conversion. We've all heard 1,000 times that there needs to be indisputable video evidence to overturn a call on the field. In my opinion, there was enough evidence to change the call, but I will admit that it probably looked very, very close to the replay officials.
But again, the call on the field was a good conversion. In a great game, on Indiana's home field, after that call had been made, there was probably very little chance that the officials were going to overturn the call.
If the call on the field had been the ball was out of bounds before scoring, then I absolutely believe that call would have stood. Because it was an incredibly difficult call in real time, and the replay officials are only human, so they probably felt like they needed to give the refs some benefit of the doubt there.
This was a year ago. The scoreboard read Indiana 36, Penn State 35. So history will indeed give Indiana credit for that victory, regardless of whether I or anyone else feels differently.
(For the record, just in case some Indiana fans stumble upon this story on the internet and feel like I'm just some Penn State homer reporter, so of course I would see things this way, that couldn't be more laughable. Any PSU fan would tell you I am in no way a homer -- far from it, in fact.)
I've written and spoken extensively on how that loss to Indiana changed the scope of the 2020 season for the Lions. Things might have turned out differently had they won, but instead they lost to Ohio State the following week, and all of the team's goals were gone at that point. It crushed the team's spirit right out of the gate during the crazy COVID year, and Penn State wound up starting 0-5 before righting the ship.
All of that has led to the obvious question of whether Penn State views this week's visit by Indiana as a revenge game.
"Nah, man, we don’t believe in revenge games,” defensive lineman PJ Mustipher said. “We’re focused on this week. We can’t focus on last year. ... We can’t go back and change time.”
James Franklin won't allow himself to think about revenge games because of his 1-0 each week mentality.
"The only people that I ever hear use those terms is when I get a question like this," Franklin said Tuesday when asked about the revenge mentality.
"Our entire focus and energy is on beating Indiana this Saturday this season. ... We’re trying to beat Tom Allen and the Indiana football team for this season and this season alone."
OK, fine, so neither Franklin nor any of his players will publicly say that revenge is a motivational factor this week. But c'mon, these are human beings, not 1-0 mentality robots, and revenge is a key part of sports for just about all athletes -- whether they'll say so or not.
Deep down inside, a lot of these Penn State players surely can't wait to play Indiana again and get some payback after the heartbreaking way last year's game ended.
Now, for a different spin on all of this, I had Neil Rudel from the Altoona Mirror on my radio show Tuesday, and he brought up a good point when he said Penn State probably didn't deserve to win last year's game. And he's right.
Sean Clifford played poorly early on as the Hoosiers built a 17-7 lead. Franklin and his coaching staff failed by not stressing to Devyn Ford that he should not go into the end zone when Indiana let him score late. The defense allowed Indiana to go 75 yards in seven plays for a touchdown, then gave up a tying 2-point conversion to force overtime. And in OT, the defense gave up another TD and another 2-point conversion to lose.
But even though all of that did happen, Penn State still should have left Bloomington with a 35-34 victory, because that 2-point conversion attempt was not truly successful.
And you'll never convince me otherwise.
