Officials make controversial call on potential Louisville touchdown vs. NC State

There’s controversy in Raleigh. During the NC State–Louisville matchup on Saturday night, the clock came to a standstill over a highly-contested call.

Down 10-7 on a 3rd and 12, Louisville QB Jack Plummer lofted up a bomb to WR Jarvis Brownlee Jr. Although Brownlee came down with ball in his hands, he wasn’t the only one. NC State cornerback Aydan White also had possession as the two crashed to the ground.

The referees ruled the play incomplete. However, it was quickly put under review. After long deliberation, the referees announced the call would stand. Louisville ultimately settled for a field goal, tying the game 10-10. Nonetheless, Cardinals fans will be thinking about that one for a while.

Catch or Incomplete (out of bounds)?

This play was called incomplete on the field and stood after review. pic.twitter.com/GqZqmX2cno

— CFB Kings (@CFBKings) September 30, 2023

In fairness, even former referee Matt Austin had no clue how to call it.

“Honestly, I hate to go here, but this is as close to a simultaneous catch as I’ve ever seen,” Austin said on the broadcast. “The rule of simultaneous catch is if both of the players possess the ball in the air, the first person to get their foot down gets the catch. In this case, it looks like they do both control it and the North Carolina State player gets his foot down first.

“Now, did they maintain possession all the way to the ground? That’s the other question. I didn’t see the ball hit the ground as they roll over, but I can’t really tell if the Louisville player kept control of the ball or not, so this one is gonna be very interesting for the replay official.”

The game is tied as the two teams head into the fourth quarter.

Louisville attracts oddity

It isn’t the first time Louisville has faced an odd situation. During the team’s 56-28 win over Boston College in Week 4, Louisville offensive lineman Willie Tyler randomly performed a cartwheel mid-play.

If the jaw-dropping maneuver didn’t distract Boston College’s defense, it certainly distracted fans. Social media stormed with videos of the acrobatic mishap. After the win, Cardinals head coach Jeff Brohm pulled back the curtain on the play.

“We wanted him to do the splits, but he couldn’t quite get that, so he went with the cartwheel,” Brohm said. “The play actually didn’t get open, we were hoping it would, but it obviously didn’t distract anybody other than our fans, maybe.

“But we scrambled – actually we fumbled the ball and we scrambled, but you know what, that’s a play where you just kind of split the tackle out, you sneak the tight end at the tackle position, hope to get him down the middle and they pointed to the tight end, so they recognized – that’s a smart football team – they recognized it.”

It was one of the few times on Saturday that Louisville’s offense didn’t succeed. In the win, the Cardinals’ offense exploded for 582 yards, 388 passing yards alone. Louisville was wildly efficient, connecting on 18-of-its-21 (85.7%) pass attempts.

Further, the Cardinals committed just four penalties compared to BC’s seven violations. This isn’t the first time Brohm’s coaching style has shined this season. Louisville entered Week 5 with a 4-0 record, boasting an average win margin of 24 points per outing.