Forward progress stops the Irish
The phrase forward progress will never be the same for the Vancouver College Fighting Irish.
Driving for the winning score and in field goal range at the end of their semifinal game against W.J. Mouat, VC’s running back Garret Sanvido ran to the right for a short gain.
The Hawks gang tackled Sanvido and held him up while pushing him back, in other words, Sanvido’s forward progress had stopped and the whistle should have been blown.
At this time, VC’s head coach Todd Bernett tried to call a timeout, thinking the Sanvido’s forward progress had stopped and the whistle would be blown.
After a few seconds went by, the Hawks began to tear at the football and eventually ripped it out of Sanvido’s hands.
The officiating crew ruled that W.J. Mouat recovered the fumble and the Hawks won the game 15-14.
On the W.J. Mouat sideline after the game when a group of reporters asked who recovered the fumble, players and coaches gave a number of different answers before it was settled on that Hawks’ all-star Drew Chung had recovered it.
According to those on the Vancouver College sideline, VC’s wide receiver Gary Sanghera ended up with the ball at the bottom of the pile.
But the officials shouldn’t have had to make the difficult determination of figuring out who recovered the fumble. It should have never happened. The whistle should have blown when the Hawks wrapped up Sanvido.
Vancouver College was not afforded the opportunity to kick a game-winning field goal.
Edit: The following is from head coach Todd Bernett’s perspective.
“His forward progress was stopped, I started calling time out, he was beginning to get pushed backwards, and then they stripped the ball. I’m going on record as saying that was a lousy call, and then at the bottom of the pile, our kid had the ball. Eighty-one, Gary Sanghera had the ball in his hands. Their corner had it for a flash and then never pulled it into his body and Gary had it at the bottom of the pile. It was two bad calls.”
“You never think that will happen. You picture that you’ll fumble because of a great hit or a great strip, not because your back gets held up for about three seconds and then your kid hustles and gets the ball and you don’t get the call. I’m usually not one to complain about the refs but we just got dogged.”
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…winners don’t make excuses, losers do.
Go Centennial
This is probably the worst game report I have ever seen…yes, this might be harsh, but I’m tired of excusesd and blaming the ref’s…maybe VC should of made the FG earlier, oh sorry it was blocked, or if they were so dominant then they should of scored more…opps, they went up against a pretty good defense…now, if the RB would have shed those players like he did a few times in the game, VC would have been jumping up and down with an early whistle call…tell me why with that much time left on the clock, they didn’t just go ahead and go for the FG…sounds like the coach is making excuses for his mistake. Take another look at game tape and you will notice that he was NOT driven backwards…his momentum was going sideways and the ball came out early with a strip from James Broadland…then it was covered by #88 Desmond Bassi…and of course their coach is complaining that they had the ball…ENOUGH IS ENOUGH…don’t take away from a great intense game by focusing on should of’s.
Mouat players played thier hearts out and had to play basically the whole game without all-star lineman Manjot Padda due to injury, but you don’t hear complaints…and these Mouat players have not been given the respect all year…it gets repetative after a while…they are not in the finals because of others mistakes, it’s because they have a great core of talent.
Marvin, I wanted to hash out the last play of the game because of the controversial call that had a great impact on the game. I wanted to delve into that play specifically because most people who read this will have seen the game or perhaps read about it in The Province, or soon will in one of the local papers. The worst game report you’ve ever seen? Clearly you don’t read Cam Tucker! HaHa just kidding Cameron.
I’ve got nothing against W.J. Mouat. Congratulations to them on winning a spectacular game, they’re a great football team and it’s going to be one heck of a championship game. They’re very well coached and the football program is as strong as any. I particularly admire coach Dennis Kelly for the two point conversion on their second touchdown. That was an amazing call. I should have made all that clear.
Back to the play in question though, even if the player was driven sideways and not backwards, his forward momentum has stopped. I’ve thought about an early whistle, but he was being driven (sideways) by defenders for a few seconds. It should have been blown dead.
According to the BC Football Officials Association’s rule book, Rule 4-2:
“The ball becomes dead and the down in ended: When a runner goes out of bounds, is held so his forward progress is stopped or allows any part of his person other than hand or foot to touch the ground.”
I’m not calling for a replay, I don’t think it’s going to be a tainted championship or anything ridiculous like that and I certainly don’t want to put this on W.J. Mouat. I just happen to think it was a bad call by the officiating crew and it was unfortunate that it had to happen at that point of the game.
This is not the first time someone has criticized officiating, nor will it be the last. It’s a very hard job, especially on split second calls like this one.
Every time I’ve dealt with coach Bernett he has been nothing but honest and has never criticized the officiating. In this instance he was much closer to the play than the cameras or anyone on the W.J. Mouat sideline.
As a result, I believe him when he says it was a bad call.
Sounds like this article was written from possibly a biased perspective?. I have a feeling the auther is a VC Grad upset that his school hasn’t won a title since the winter of 1994. You’d think losing would become routine to the 15 years of alumni classes of losers.
Well that explantaion was a lot of nothing…what happened on the play right after the turnover…Mouat took a knee…it time was such a factor then VC should of looked at kicking the FG instead of running…and if it was a bad snap they would have to opportunity to kick again before the end of the game. Your trying to put 10 seconds of play on an entire game…what happened the other 47:50 minutes?…they were probably running the play because they don’t have confidence in their kicker?
It’s just a shame…you missed such an exciting game…I guess the only reason the RoughRiders lost the gray cup was because of the penalty and the end of the game…not the other 55:50 minutes of the game.
Actually poor play calling by VC cost them the win as they outplayed the Hawks but could not excecute.
Bottom line is that tons of great runs on the day by the VC back would have been whistled dead by the defintion that you want to use on the last play.
Why they ran that play and used 2 of their time outs before that is something they might reconsider in an alternate universe but there is always next year for the Irish (isn’t that their current slogan?).
The refs made the right call on the play, as for the game report it is a homer one as has been pointed out.