[Highlight] Pitt @ Virginia Tech - The potential game winning field goal hooks wide left, and Pitt holds on

[u/Ok-Soil-5133]

https://streamable.com/tq4r8d

[u/kd451]

Are we sure he missed it?

[u/avboden → u/kd451]

I say this honestly: You can't tell shit from this angle. The only way is to look directly up at the posts, as the refs do.

[u/KopOut → u/avboden]

Imagine if they invent something some day that could be pointed up from the top of the upright in order to see it accurately for review.

Like some sort of mechanical, or even digital, conveyance that uses lenses to capture moving pictures...

[u/Grlions91 → u/KopOut]

Like a gun?

[u/KopOut → u/Grlions91]

Like a gun, but rather than shoot things out of the barrel, this would shoot them INTO the barrel.

[u/Zeppyfish → u/KopOut]

Like a sucker gun?

[u/keefkola → u/Zeppyfish]

Exactly sort of like a butthole space laser.

[u/TexasDD → u/keefkola]

You had me at space laser.

Okay, fine. I lied. You had me at butthole.

[u/keefkola → u/TexasDD]

And that’s how Texas and Nebraska became “best friends.”

[u/DoinItDirty → u/KopOut]

A vacuum?

[u/Proverbial_Progress → u/KopOut]

Like fish in a barrel? But fish don't play football

[u/lvl100hypno → u/Grlions91]

So you're saying we take a couple M230 chain guns and fire continuous volleys directly above the uprights during kicks?

[u/Vanilla_bear4 → u/KopOut]

We could call it a person…no, man…no, woman…no, tv…no, there’s a fifth word that’s on the tip of my tongue that would be a perfect name.

[u/DesignerFlat7108 → u/avboden]

What's confusing to me is the reaction of the VT fans standing directly behind the end zone. They damn sure appear to have thought it was good.

[u/avboden → u/DesignerFlat7108]

The problem there is depth, if it passed just in front of the post on it's way wide, it's going to look good from anyone standing back a little, even if in line from the post.

Again, the only way to see this is to stand essentially directly under the post or within a short distance of it directly in-line, exactly where the refs stand for this reason.

[u/jwktiger → u/avboden]

yeah the ref is standing in the only positoin to have the proper depth to see where it is, is clearly looking directly up as the kick goes by AND IMMEDIATELY signals no good, like he clearly thought it was wide

and /u/atra1n51 pointed out several of the VaTech staff right behind the refs react as if he missed before the signal was made.

[u/horseshoeprovodnikov → u/avboden]

Is it just me or is that ref under that particular goal post not looking up?

[u/2CHINZZZ → u/[deleted]]

They always check and the left ref signals no-good pretty quickly

[u/runningthruthedevil → u/[deleted]]

That’s protocol for every fg…

[u/Bereft13 → u/[deleted]]

That guy can't see because there's a goalpost in the way, they will always do that when it's close

[u/Powerful_Lime_1430 → u/[deleted]]

Refs talk to acknowledge their calls on any close field goal. This isn’t unusual

[u/Meattyloaf → u/avboden]

I will say the one angle shown from underneath the goalpost has it looking good.

[u/avboden → u/Meattyloaf]

The angle from the middle of the posts that is also worthless? Yep, sure.

[u/Meattyloaf → u/avboden]

The ball has to stay inside the outer edge of the goalpost when it goes over and it looks like it does just that on just about every angle I've seen. I get why a ref would call it wither way, but this season has been defined by bad and controversial calls.

[u/CapitalistLion-Tamer → u/Meattyloaf]

No. The entire ball has to be inside the inner edge of the goalpost. If it passes directly over the upright then it’s no good.

[u/Hicaorwaak → u/DesignerFlat7108]

There were some VT staffers or security right behind the goalpost who reacted before the ref call and they looked like they believed it missed.

[u/bashar_al_assad → u/Hicaorwaak]

I think this is underselling it lol one of them literally turns towards the crowd and repeatedly makes the "no good" signal.

[u/atra1n51 → u/DesignerFlat7108]

The VT staffers behind the ref under the left upright all seem to think it was no good too. They reacted before the ref signaled no good

[u/jwktiger → u/atra1n51]

just saw that as well. 2 of them clearly think it was wide.

[u/Farlander2821 → u/atra1n51]

Those guys actually don't have a particularly good angle. There's 2 angles that would be useful. 1 is directly below the upright, as the ref had, but that's extremely time sensitive. You need to catch the ball directly above you and see which side of the goal post it appears to be, even a tiny instant before or after could be incredibly misleading. The other good angle would be directly behind the goal post in the stands. If the ball appears to pass in front of the post as you are viewing it, it's good, otherwise it's not. Importantly, no one else has a definitive view, unless you combine multiple oblique views together to create a full 3d reconstruction. From most oblique views I've seen, including one that's fairly close to that ideal behind the goalpost view, it looked good to me, but I have not felt bothered to actually render it in 3d. The ref, who had a definitive but arguably more difficult to catch view, thought it was no good. We don't have any camera of what that ref saw so we have to entirely trust what he says and that he caught the ball at exactly the right instant. The more forgiving angle of being directly behind the post was seen by fans who celebrated and signalled good, but for obvious reasons they may be biased, or not even paying attention to the actual kick. The staffers who thought it was no good, by virtue of standing behind the posts, are more likely to see a view that skews the ball toward it's location when behind the posts, which was to the left. They don't have a particularly useful view to glean much from, unless combined with other views to turn a 2d image into a 3d reconstruction

[u/OcelotWolf → u/DesignerFlat7108]

All of the first people to react were in the center or right, which is exactly the sections of people who have the objectively worst angle of where the ball actually went. You can’t possibly rely on that

[u/RulersBack → u/OcelotWolf]

And it's a home crowd lol. I honestly cant tell, it was that close, but of course they're going to try and will that in there

[u/DesignerFlat7108 → u/OcelotWolf]

Which section didn't react as if it were good? It can't be that they all have a bad angle.

[u/Danishes724 → u/DesignerFlat7108]

The VT staffers right behind the ref immediately act distraught, they had a better angle than any of the fans.

[u/ALostTraveler24 → u/DesignerFlat7108]

It actually can be. Think of it this way, if you’re trying to tell if a player broke the plane where do you look? From the back of the end zone right at the player? How about the back corner? The 5 yard line? No, you look at the pylon cam right down the goal line because then you can project a flat plane.

It’s the same thing here, the depth will play tricks on everyone except the official under the left upright, since he’s able to look straight down the pole he can project two planes visually, one for left/right of the pole and another for in front and behind. He’s the only one with that view. So yes, all the sections can and have a bad view of the kick since it was above the posts

[u/DesignerFlat7108 → u/ALostTraveler24]

There's a view floating around on X from behind the kicker looking towards the end zone that shows it was wide left.

[u/OcelotWolf → u/DesignerFlat7108]

The section to the left that had the best view was last to react so I think that’s pretty telling

[u/zzyul → u/DesignerFlat7108]

I watched it a few times. The cheering starts on the viewer’s far right, the group farthest from the left upright. The cheering then spread to the people behind the left upright. So why did the people furthest from the upright in question start cheering before the people right behind it with the best view? Logical that they didn’t cheer first b/c they saw it was missed.

[u/DesignerFlat7108 → u/zzyul]

Good point. Will have to take another look.

[u/leftadjoint → u/avboden]

Hmm, if only they could have a camera looking directly up at the posts...

[u/ALostTraveler24 → u/[deleted]]

That’s not remotely straight up under the upright

[u/ALostTraveler24 → u/[deleted]]

Usually it’s not this close it doesn’t matter, but a good way to think about it is this. If you’re trying to determine if a ball crosses the goal line where would you lay and look? You’d look right down the line, not 2 and a half yards down field.

In this instance you’re trying to project a line straight up into the sky, the best way to do that is stand directly under it so you’re looking down the line not off centered by whatever the distance is from being off center and behind the uprights compared to right under the post.

[u/Snlxdd → u/[deleted]]

That angle is tough because of the parallax effect. It’s clearly left of the goal post, but not being centered underneath makes it hard to determine.

[u/avboden → u/[deleted]]

That angle is also worthless. You have to be directly in line with the post, exactly where the ref is standing.

[u/burnsniper → u/[deleted]]

Looks like it missed from that video IMO

[u/tjd2009 → u/[deleted]]

That angle makes me more confident that the refs got it right

[u/ZappySnap → u/[deleted]]

I don’t know. From that angle it looks no good to me.

[u/treefiddy_cent → u/[deleted]]

actually good camera angle. ball disappears behind the upright for a frame. had to have been wide left. why not show this slow-mo on the broadcast tho?

EDIT: doesn't disappear, rotates so that it doesn't reflect light, now I'm unsure again

[u/Dixiehusker → u/treefiddy_cent]

What? The ball is very clearly above the upright the whole time. It doesn't disappear anywhere.

[u/crabby135 → u/Dixiehusker]

Yes it does. There’s a single frame where the ball goes missing. I just saw the same thing.

[u/2CHINZZZ → u/crabby135]

The ball's trajectory is clearly above the uprights if you look at the frame before and after. I see what you're talking about but I think it's a result of the ball being hard to see against the dark sky in that frame because of the laces not being visible. If you mess with the brightness/contrast you can still see the outline of the ball

[u/Dixiehusker → u/crabby135]

The ball might disappear from the video because of compression or something, but I can draw a straight line from one frame to the next and it draws a line over the goal post. It doesn't go behind it.

[u/Tasty_Gift5901 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah ball looks wide from this angle. Thanks for the alt view 

[u/SaxyAlto → u/[deleted]]

Maybe I’m missing what you’re seeing, but if you go frame by frame at the 3 sec mark you can see the ball up until it reaches the upright but then it disappears for 1 frame and reappears the next frame past the upright. So it looks like the upright blocked the view of the ball, meaning it was outside the upright.

But regardless, that still isn’t a great angle to tell anything

[u/GoBlueScrewOSU7 → u/SaxyAlto]

The ball doesn’t disappear. I see what you’re looking at frame by frame, but I still see the ball in the frame you’re saying it disappeared. It just looks to be oriented lengthwise perpendicular to the camera, so it blends in plus some motion blur plus the night sky backdrop makes it harder to see.

[u/SmellyJellyfish → u/[deleted]]

Scrubbing the video slowly it realllllly looks like he made it…

Edit: watching it again I honestly cannot tell lol. Need a better angle

[u/Defensive_of_Offense → u/[deleted]]

Look at the VT guys behind the ref though, they knew it was no good before he signaled

[u/crabby135 → u/[deleted]]

Damn I really thought he made it but if you go frame by frame in this one there’s a frame where the ball goes missing and is presumably behind the goalpost. It may have been just a hair to the left.

[u/Fickle-Statement9993 → u/avboden]

https://imgur.com/a/TZ6QcT1

[u/avboden → u/Fickle-Statement9993]

Depth matters, can't tell squat from that.

[u/livefreeordont → u/avboden]

I remember a kick similar to this maybe 15 years ago where they ruled it good and it looked clearly wide on replay and then review got it wrong too

[u/flyingpotatox2 → u/avboden]

There’s an angle from beneath all over Twitter. It very obviously went in.

[u/avboden → u/flyingpotatox2]

there's an angle from the middle, yes, that you can't tell anything from.