u/water_tower_king

I keep seeing the still image of this, but it really doesn't do it justice to show how bad it actually was, so here's the video. This is the replay that ESPN showed during the game (all the rewinding and fast forwarding were on the live broadcast) and neither Herbstreit or Fowler even mentioned any potential of holding here while watching it replay over and over.

I agree that late play should have been PI, but also Alabama was down 3 at the moment, it was a poorly thrown pass anyway that wasn't going to be caught, and who knows what would have happened after that if they got the penalty? This holding play, on the other hand, actually occurred on a scoring play, which is much more consequential. It's utterly ridiculous to act like Georgia's win should have an asterisk for an uncalled penalty that would have still required Alabama to score, and plenty of time for Georgia to score again.

I'll also add - missed penalties happen. When you watch at full speed, it can be hard to tell if a player got there early or not, especially when refs aren't watching replays to decide if they should throw a flag. What's much worse is when penalties are called for very questionable things. I remember UGA having multiple long plays get called back for holding in this game, and at least one of them looked very questionable, while the one in the video above was one of the more obvious holding scenarios you'll ever see and led directly to a TD by Alabama.

The second half was bad, but I'll be one to say I see a lot of improvement on the passing offense.

7.2 yards/attempt last night was better than every game Wisconsin played last year except for Middle Tennessee State.

128.42 passer rating was also better than every game last year except for Middle Tennessee State.

217 passing yards was better than every game last year except for Middle Tennessee State and Maryland.

I know people want to see a strong rushing attack from Wisconsin, but this was against a (currently) top 5 Notre Dame team that was #11 in the country last year on rush defense.

This was also the first game of the year, and Wisconsin being the younger and less experienced team, including a lot of transfer players that are playing their first real game together for the first time, likely needs more time to click. They were thrown into the fire against a much more experienced Notre Dame roster, and they kept it very close until a couple of big mistakes caused things to get out of control.

I think Colton Joseph is the real deal and the best QB Wisconsin has had in quite some time, which has been a glaring missing piece. Notre Dame was locked in on stopping him from running, and lesser teams won't be able to stop his dual threat abilities. The difference now is UW can actually pass the ball pretty consistently when needed. Will be interesting to watch this year.

Video of blatant hold on an actual TD pass

More passing yards, yards/attempt than almost every game last year