Let’s play Explain the Fumble!

If the whistle hadn't blown, who would have recovered it? 

It's very, very clear.

It was a pretty fortunate call and review.  Generally, I thought the game was pretty poorly/unevenly officiated on both sides, although since that fumble call was so big due to field position, we probably came out ahead.  I could not believe the holding call on Trente Jones was called based on the last few weeks, but whatever.  At least they finally started calling false starts on OT's for jumping a half beat early.

Fox was dreadful last night. Their commercials were out of control. This entire situation played out during an ad break, and they ended up having to try to clean it up on the broadcast over three separate segments (the play, then before the TD, then after the kickoff, all with ads in between).

Klatt said obvi fumble, not obvi recovery. Blandino (10 minutes later when they got him on screen) said the opposite.

As for yours truly, I don't think either was obvious. I do side more with Klatt; looked like a fumble but the recovery call was dicey. I completely understand that the ball bounced right to Wallace and no one else was even near the ball and wasn't really on top of the ball when it hit the ground. But the ref blew the whistle immediately. No one made any kind of play to get to the ball or follow the ball as it headed toward Wallace, who was still upright when the caught it, meaning that without a whistle the play would still be live with Iowa pursuing the ball and Wallace.

The refs presumed way too much, IMO, about what would or would not have happened without a whistle. It didn't ultimately impact the outcome (in that we would have won the game anyway, let's be real) but no question it gave us a barely earned TD that put us up three scores, effectively ending the game, because it's Iowa.

Does it matter in your evaluation that Wallace picked the ball up and immediately handed it to the official, and didn't joyously run to the sidelines to get his buffs pic?

I disagree with everybody saying Wallace was almost guaranteed to recover it regardless. How many times have we seen defenders have trouble securing fumbles in the heat of the game? How many players would've flung themselves at the ball to try to make it harder to recover?

As we know, a football is hard to recover when you have heavy padding on.

Was it the right call anyway given past precedent? I don't know, but it's not clear to me that Wallace would've recovered the ball if it was live.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking to the people who do say it was almost guaranteed, not the people who say it was likely.

It was a horribly officiated play.  When it happened live I immediately said “that’s a fumble”.  On replay I still say it was a fumble.  The reason I say it was horribly officiated is that if me thinking it was a fumble watching it live then they NEVER should have blown the play dead in the first place.  You let it play itself out and then if you believe it was a forward pass you would go back and correct that aspect of the ruling.  However, once they did blow it dead I’m truly not sure that it was a “clear and immediate recovery” as the recovery happened at least 2 seconds after the initial whistle.  And, as others have said, the whole thing was made more confusing by FOX doing a full 4 minute commercial while this was all being sorted out.

I dunno. The Tide needed a miracle just two weeks ago to knock off a mediocre Auburn team, and FSU’s defense looks legit. I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather play Alabama, especially if FSU gets a month to sort out their QB situation. 

Clearly the Blue Wall caused that fumble, a call was placed allowing us to cheat, idk something like that, but that was a wild call and Iowa fans could be mad about it although the only thing it took from them was another chance to see their punter

I thought Deacon Hill's arm was going forward and it should've been an incomplete pass.  But that matters not.  Michigan's D line was so disruptive of what Hill was trying to do that I firmly believe we would've got to him again.  I thought it was cute that the Fox guys were all excited about a game at halftime.  Iowa was not going to score points in that game. 

Having seen similar situations in the past, probably in the NFL though, I would have expected the refs to explain that it was a fumble but the play was blown dead prior to a recovery, so they treat it like a fumble rolling out of bounds and leave it in Iowa's possession, and then spot the ball at the point of the fumble.

I'm not apologizing for the call and will take a ref-makes-up-the-rules call in our favor all day.  Just really surprised they gave us the ball there.