Michigan’s controversial win adds to the nagging feeling college football just isn’t fair

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Apparently, the Big House is the land where time stands still, where clocks melt like a Salvador Dalí painting and Deloreans wind back the minute hand just enough for the home team to get another chance.

It’s where games end but somehow continue, where football takes 60 minutes and one second and days are 24 hours and one second. Where teams already afforded every advantage are now given the gift of imaginary time.

That is the real travesty in Western Michigan’s 13-12 “loss” to Michigan.

The Broncos seemed to have pulled off the biggest win in school history only for the official to add one second back on the clock for one last play, in which Michigan completed a Hail Mary pass for the win.

This entire offseason has felt like a protracted exercise in gluttony. The conferences, schools, players and coaches who already have so much still want more, and when they can’t get it, they go to court to get their way.

LSU poleaxed a team that used to win national championships on the regular, and somehow still thinks it needs the assistance of would-be-but-couldn’t-make-it NFL dudes.

The SEC and Big Ten asked Congress for help to bail them out of the mess they had created, looking for ways to curtail outrageous spending and put guardrails up on the college athletics Autobahn. So, Congress came up with a solution, but the two leagues dithered over the particulars just long enough that the Protect College Sports Act never really had a chance.

Look, the playing fields haven’t been even in decades, the gap between the moneyed schools widening with each passing season. But the advent of NIL has turned the gap into an unconquerable chasm. According to the U.S. Department of Education Equity in Athletics website , Western Michigan’s budget – for its entire department – is $8 million. Published reports estimate Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood’s NIL package at between $10.5 million and $12.5 million over four years.

When lettermen sweaters are stitched with gold threading and designed by Armani, it makes the whole thing a little harder to stomach. But all of that distaste was supposed to go away when the games began , when the undefeated and delicious product that is college football finally got the chance to shove the ancillary stuff back into the shadows.

Instead, here we are, a week in and wondering why an official review is seemingly being run like a Louisiana courtroom . Why the eleventh hour came with an extra second, killing time proved impossible, and time fails to fly in Ann Arbor.

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So absurdly controversial was the final not-last second call, it’s temporarily dislodged Lane Kiffin from the spot of top of the most reviled man in football.

“When I looked up at the clock, it was past zeroes,’’ said Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor.

Because it was. Time had officially run out on Michigan, the 24th-ranked Wolverines held to a baseball score by their directional little brother over in Kalamazoo. Underwood’s last-ditch pass sailed out of bounds, the clock clearly showing zero before the ball touched a Western Michigan defender’s hand.

Officials called for an immediate review, a fair and reasonable request on a last-second play. And then they went into the Delorean and found a second that didn’t exist. Given a redo, Underwood made a hero 47-yard throw that JJ Buchanan somehow snatched out of traffic as he fell into the end zone.

Late Saturday night, the Big Ten released a statement and explanation, saying that a Western Michigan player had touched the ball with one second left. They released video and audio to coincide with the statement, though it is not clear why the clock they used was entirely different than what was seen both on TV and in the stadium.

It’s also difficult to tell, because the defender has his back to the camera, when exactly he touched the ball. At best it was a nanosecond or so of difference.

The odds of the Big Ten overturning the call were always going to be steeper than the +27.5-point spread the Broncos faced against the Wolverines. If the league was to say the call was wrong, it would have to negate Michigan’s victory. And let’s be real: If Michigan didn’t vacate any wins after the whole Connor Stalions’ caper, they aren’t losing this one.

Western Michigan and the MAC took the high road . Both said they accepted the Big Ten’s explanation, and Taylor was a model of decorum in his postgame comments.

Still, it begs the public to dismiss something it saw with its own eyes. At the very least, in a world of technological advances, there needs to be better synchronization with the officials’ clock and the one in stadium.

That doesn’t seem so much to ask.

The real kick here is this isn’t even the first time this happened with Michigan. In 2005, officials found two seconds when the unranked Wolverines hosted No. 8 Penn State. Back then, they ruled the stadium clock stopped too early after Michigan was granted a timeout. On the next play, quarterback Chad Henne threw a 10-yard TD pass to Mario Manningham, giving the Wolverines the win.

The difference is, Penn State went on to win the rest of its games and earn an invite to the Orange Bowl. There won’t be other chances like this for Western Michigan. The Broncos’ next opponent is Monmouth, followed by Rice and Boise State before they roll headlong into MAC play.

This was their chance. To steal from another sport where Cinderella gets more of an opportunity than in college football, it was their one shining moment.

Instead time, as it turns out, does wait for some teams.

For Michigan, in the Big House, it happily stands still.

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显然，在密歇根体育场（麦迪逊广场花园），时间仿佛静止，时钟像萨尔瓦多·达利的画作一样融化，而德罗宁汽车会把分针拨回原位，让主队获得再次进攻的机会。

在这里，比赛结束了，但又以某种方式继续下去；在这里，足球比赛只用了60分钟零1秒，而一天却变成了24小时零1秒。在这里，原本就拥有各种优势的球队，现在又被赋予了想象中的时间。

这才是西密歇根大学以 13-12 “输给”密歇根大学真正令人愤慨的地方。

野马队似乎取得了校史上最伟大的胜利，但裁判却在最后一攻中加了一秒钟，密歇根队完成了一次孤注一掷的传球，赢得了比赛。

整个休赛期感觉就像一场漫长的贪婪盛宴。那些已经拥有很多的联盟、学校、球员和教练仍然贪得无厌，一旦得不到满足，他们就诉诸法律来达到目的。

路易斯安那州立大学 (LSU) 轻松击败了一支曾经经常赢得全国冠军的球队，但不知何故，他们仍然认为自己需要那些想进 NFL 但最终没能成功的球员的帮助。

美国证券交易委员会（SEC）和十大联盟（Big Ten）向国会求助，希望摆脱他们自己造成的烂摊子，寻求遏制肆意挥霍、规范大学体育产业的途径。国会提出了一项解决方案，但这两个联盟在细节问题上犹豫不决，导致《保护大学体育法案》最终未能通过。

你看，几十年来，各校之间的竞争环境一直不公平，财力雄厚的学校之间的差距逐年扩大。但NIL（姓名、形象和肖像权）的出现，更是将这种差距变成了无法逾越的鸿沟。根据美国教育部体育公平网站的数据，西密歇根大学整个体育部门的预算只有800万美元。而公开报道估计，密歇根大学四分卫布莱斯·安德伍德的NIL合同金额在四年内将达到1050万至1250万美元。

当校队毛衣用金线缝制，并由阿玛尼设计时，这一切就让人难以接受了。但所有这些反感本应在比赛开始后消失，当精彩绝伦、永不落幕的大学橄榄球终于有机会将那些无关紧要的因素抛诸脑后时。

然而，一周过去了，我们却还在疑惑，为什么官方审查的流程看起来就像路易斯安那州的法庭一样。为什么最后一刻总是多出一秒，拖延时间根本行不通，时间在安娜堡似乎过得飞快。

格雷戈里·沙姆斯/盖蒂图片社

最后一秒的判罚极具争议，以至于暂时将莱恩·基芬从足球界最令人憎恶的人的宝座上拉了下来。

“当我抬头看表时，时间已经过了零了，”西密歇根大学主教练兰斯·泰勒说道。

事实的确如此。密歇根大学的比赛时间正式耗尽，排名第24位的狼獾队被他们在卡拉马祖的“小弟”西密歇根大学队以棒球比分限制住。安德伍德的最后一传飞出了界外，在球触到西密歇根大学防守队员的手之前，计时器已经显示为零。

官员们要求立即进行录像回放，这对于一个最后一秒的进攻来说，是一个公平合理的要求。然而，他们却像坐上了时光机，找到了一个根本不存在的录像。在获得重赛机会后，安德伍德完成了一记47码的英雄传球，JJ·布坎南在倒地达阵区时，奇迹般地从人群中接住了球。

周六深夜，十大联盟发布声明解释称，西密歇根大学的一名球员在比赛还剩一秒时触球。他们同时发布了视频和音频，但目前尚不清楚为什么他们使用的计时器与电视和现场看到的计时器完全不同。

由于防守队员背对着镜头，很难准确判断他何时触球。充其量，两者之间的时间差只有一纳秒左右。

十大联盟推翻判罚的可能性本来就比野马队对阵狼獾队时27.5分的让分还要大。如果联盟真的认为判罚错误，那就意味着密歇根大学的胜利将被取消。说实话，如果密歇根大学在康纳·斯塔利恩斯事件后没有被取消任何胜场，他们这场比赛肯定不会输。

西密歇根大学和中西部联盟都展现了高风度。双方都表示接受十大联盟的解释，泰勒在赛后发言中也表现得彬彬有礼。

然而，这却要求公众对亲眼所见的事实置之不理。至少，在科技如此发达的今天，裁判的计时器和体育场内的计时器应该更好地同步才对。

这要求似乎并不过分。

更令人啼笑皆非的是，这并非密歇根大学第一次遭遇这种情况。2005年，在排名未入榜的密歇根狼獾队主场迎战排名第八的宾夕法尼亚州立大学时，裁判就曾发现比赛时间多了两秒。当时，裁判判定在密歇根大学获得暂停后，球场计时器过早停止。在接下来的进攻中，四分卫查德·亨内向马里奥·曼宁汉姆传出10码达阵，帮助狼獾队赢得了比赛。

不同之处在于，宾夕法尼亚州立大学最终赢得了剩余的比赛，并获得了参加橙碗的资格。而西密歇根大学则不会再有这样的机会。野马队的下一个对手是蒙茅斯大学，之后是莱斯大学和博伊西州立大学，然后他们将全力投入到中西部联盟（MAC）的比赛中。

这是他们的机会。他们想从另一项运动中窃取成功，在这项运动中，灰姑娘获得的机会比在大学橄榄球中要多得多，而这却是他们唯一闪耀的时刻。

然而，事实证明，时间确实会等待一些球队。

对于密歇根大学来说，在“大房子”（密歇根体育场）里，一切都欣然静止。