NEW YORK—Saturday's see-sawing shootout at Yankee Stadium had plenty of big-play highlights, but the Blue Devils' 44-41 victory against Indiana in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl came down to a controversial kick in overtime that could have sent the game deeper into extras.
It almost seemed like poetic justice for Duke.
After failing to pick up a first down on its first possession in overtime, the Hoosiers sent out kicker Griffin Oakes to attempt a 38-yard kick to match Duke’s 36-yarder by Ross Martin just moments before.
The snap was good. The hold was good. The kick missed to the right—barely.
In a photo released by ESPN after the game, though, the kick seems to sneak just inside the upright, which would have tied the game at 44.
“I’ve seen the picture that ESPN put out. I don’t know either way,” Duke defensive tackle Carlos Wray said. “All I know is they came out and they played hard and we played hard and the chips fell where they fell. It’s a great game.”
Wray was not the only Blue Devil with second thoughts. Running back Shaquille Powell was not comfortable beginning to celebrate the win until he saw the rest of his teammates react.
“I actually thought he made it,” Powell said. “It’s just a relief when you see something like that—it was a missed field goal.”
Of course, Duke is all too familiar with the heartbreak of a controversial special teams call in the waning seconds of a game. On Oct. 31 in Durham, an eight-lateral kickoff return touchdown by Miami as time expired became a Halloween nightmare the Blue Devils quickly wished they could forget.
Video review of the play indicated that a Hurricane player’s knee was down and several block in the back calls were missed, but Duke was still tagged with the loss. The referees and replay officials were suspended for two games, and the ACC went as far as to issue an apology for the missed calls—but that did nothing to help the string of four consecutive defeats that put the Blue Devils out of contention for the ACC Coastal Division title.
But as Duke learned on Halloween, once the game is called over by the referee on the field, it is officially over. The result of the game can be lamented, but it cannot be overturned.
For four quarters, Indiana looked like it was on the verge of breaking a bowl drought of its own, dating back to the 1991 Copper Bowl. But in the end, the Hoosiers received an explanation similar to the one Duke had to stomach against Miami.
“The ball went beyond the end line over the top of the upright and when that occurs, the play is not reviewable. The ruling was that the ball was outside of the upright and in order for a field goal to be good, the ball has to be completely inside the upright,” referee and crew chief Chris Coyte said in a statement. “It went way beyond the end line, airborne. That’s what’s been communicated [to Indiana].”
Indiana leaves New York and Yankee Stadium with a losing record and another heartbreaking loss—their fifth one-score defeat of the season. But looking back at the path that Duke took to reach its first bowl win in 54 years, the Hoosiers can look to build upon the success of this season next year.
The Blue Devils were in a similar situation back in 2012, ending the season 6-7 with a 48-34 defeat at the hands of Cincinnati in the Belk Bowl after a go-ahead Duke touchdown had seemed a near-certainty. Three years later, head coach David Cutcliffe's squad is over the hump and victorious in the postseason.
In the days leading up to the Pinstripe Bowl, Hoosier head coach Kevin Wilson talked about using Duke's success under Cutcliffe as a model for his own program. For Indiana, now it is time to move forward on the same path, whether the kick was good or not.
“It wasn’t good,” Wilson said. “You can sit there and look at it. But when I saw the scoreboard, to me, it looks like it travels outside the bar, hooks in, on the other side of the goal post…. As we build the program, we’re going to keep playing in bigger games. You've got to get used to it.”
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