Here’s why this Army-Navy fumble recovery took more than 2 minutes to overturn

With Navy driving on Army, down 14-7 in the teams’ game on Saturday, the Black Knights appeared to get a gift.

Midshipmen quarterback Zach Abey tossed a lousy option pitch to slotback Dishan Romine, and Romine couldn’t corral it. The ball bounced toward the sideline, where a couple of Black Knights defenders try to grab the ball without letting it (or any part of their bodies) touch the sideline. Officials initially ruled that Army safety Rhyan England did exactly that – recovered the ball and stayed in bounds.

But after a replay review, officials decided England had gone out of bounds before securing the ball. That looks like the right call from every angle, though it’s awfully close, and the mass of bodies surrounding the ball makes it difficult to say with certainty. I mean, what do you do about this?

England wears No. 20. He’s buried along with the ball, somewhere in that pile of bodies. It seems pretty impossible he’d have control of the ball without any part of his body (or the ball itself) first touching the white paint. The likeliest outcome is that officials got it right, but they had a hard time figuring it out. So did I.

Navy retained possession, anyway, at Army’s 11-yard line. The Knights’ defense held after that, and Navy kicked a field goal to make the score 14-10. It might not turn out to matter, but if it does, this could be a point of contention at West Point for a long time.