UW’s win tops list of wild rallies

PULLMAN – Mike Riley’s seen some strange things coaching football.

But the Oregon State coach – and most of his Pac-10 brethren – has never seen anything like what happened at the end of Washington’s improbable 36-33 win over Arizona in Seattle last Saturday night.

Trailing by 12 with a little more than 4 minutes left, the Huskies scored twice to upset the Wildcats. But that wasn’t the kicker.

The final, go-ahead touchdown came on Mason Foster’s 37-yard interception return on a ball he gathered in after it bounced off Delashaun Dean’s shoe.

“No,” Riley answered Tuesday on the Pac-10 coaches’ conference call when asked if he’s seen anything like it. “It’s like my biggest nightmare though. … I kind of have a paranoia about that.”

“No, no,” Arizona State’s veteran coach Dennis Erickson said when asked the same question. “I can’t imagine what (UA) coach (Mike) Stoops went through on that thing. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life and I’ve been through about everything, but that’s not one of them.”

Erickson, who has watched the play on video, said “on tape it’s kind of hard to see what exactly transpired. It was unbelievable.”

This brings up a point. The play, like all in college football, was reviewed by the booth crew. Did the ball hit the ground, as Arizona’s fans have said in a flood of Internet traffic?

The booth officials didn’t see enough evidence to overturn the interception call and the replays were fuzzy at best.

But a lot of calls this season have been overturned on what seems fuzzy evidence and a lot have stood up despite seemingly clear-cut confirmation.

“You have to realize it’s out of your hands,” said first-year Washington coach Steve Sarkisian, whose team was on the other end of a couple of reviews in its recent Notre Dame loss.

“When you look at it and really try to analyze it is, the angles and … the number of cameras that we have at specific games varies from game to game, depending on who is carrying the game and what the coverage is. That is a big determination on some of these calls.”

There can be an argument made that booth reviews detract from the game – and actually cause more consternation after a play like Saturday’s, which Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh labeled “a minor miracle.”

The play was extraordinary, but Riley saw something nearly as bizarre when he was coaching in the now-defunct World Football League in 1992, long before instant replay.

His team needed just one more play for a close win. They were in what’s called the victory formation, with the quarterback taking the snap flanked by two protectors, with another back about 10 yards back just in case.

The snap was low, however, caromed off the quarterback’s hands, was kicked forward and ended up bouncing right into the safety’s grasp. He raced down the sidelines toward winning field-goal range before stepping out of bounds with a second left.

“Here he is running down the sideline with seconds ticking off the clock (and) ducks out of bounds as the clock expires,” Riley said. “And I’m thankful it was a home game, because the guy let it go to zero or otherwise they’re kicking a field goal to win the game.”

If the play had happened today, there would have been a review of the fumble, whether or not the player had stepped out of bounds and how much time should have been left on the clock.

And Riley’s story wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.