No. 21 Colorado defeated Arizona State 28-21, but aside from the Buffs’ victory, plenty of fans were unhappy about a hit on Sun Devils star receiver N’Keal Harry. On a Colorado punt, Harry took a huge hit from Colorado’s Drew Lewis, who appeared to come out of nowhere to make the tackle:
This bizarre ASU-Colorado hit was probably legal, but it’s hard to tell
At first glance, it looked like a player came off the bench to make the tackle.
From a different angle:
Unfortunately, the hit kept Harry off the field for the rest of the game.
There was some confusion as to where exactly Lewis came from — some thought he came off of the bench, given where he came onto the field.
Here’s the full play:
Here’s a look at all 11 guys pre-snap:
This appears to be Lewis. He’s the only player in CU’s lineup wearing a single white sleeve like Lewis’:
Per NCAA rules, it’s obviously illegal for a player not on the field for the snap to come off the sideline. However, it is legal for a player to come back inbounds if he’s pushed/blocked out of bounds on a play — but he has to come back on the field immediately. From the NCAA rulebook:
A Team A player who goes out of bounds during a free kick down may not return inbounds during the down (Exception: This does not apply to a Team A player who is blocked out of bounds and returns in-bounds immediately).
Arizona State head coach Herm Edwards said after the game that Lewis had been blocked out of bounds:
ESPN and Pac-12 Network play-by-play broadcaster Roxy Bernstein, who was calling Saturday’s game, indicates that Lewis was in fact pushed out of bounds, and came back in:
Right after the snap, you can see the player who appears to be Lewis is in a crowd heading toward the left sideline:
Obviously, it’s tough to follow Lewis on the entirety of the play here, but as long as he was blocked out of bounds and came back in as quickly as he could, this hit was legal, although it was a hard one.
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