While No. 19 Florida State trailed No. 20 Virginia Tech 10-0 in the second quarter on Monday, the Seminoles broke off their second-longest play of the game: a 30-yard completion from Deondre Francois to Nyqwan Murray.
Was this Florida State play a touchdown?
Nyqwan Murray was ruled just short. It comes down to a shin.
The problem was that it wasn’t ruled a 31-yard play, which would’ve made it a touchdown. Officials called Murray down at Virginia Tech’s 1-yard line. And despite it being really close, neither the stripes nor FSU coach Willie Taggart initiated a review:
Murray’s knees and elbows clearly didn’t touch the ground before the ball crossed the plane of the goal line. That would make it an obvious touchdown, except for this point:
My thought, which doesn’t come with a high degree of certainty: Murray’s shin wasn’t down, and this should’ve been a touchdown, but there’s little chance a video review would’ve overturned the ruling that Murray was down at the 1-yard line.
It mattered, because FSU took a false start on the ensuing first down and never got around to punching in a touchdown. The Noles settled for a field goal to cut the lead to 10-3, then gave up a punt block for a touchdown a short time later. Murray coming up a few inches short changed the feeling of the game, at least for a little while.
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