Michigan-Western Michigan ending explained: MAC accepts Big Ten's claim that 1 second was left on clock before Hail Mary

The easy word for what happened at the end of No. 16 Michigan's win over Western Michigan is "controversial." That might not work, though, as everyone seems pretty unanimous on what happened.

With only a few seconds on the clock, Michigan attempted a 47-yard Hail Mary that fell incomplete as time seemingly expired. A replay review predictably ensued, with the Big Ten's replay center eventually deciding to put one second back on the clock.

Michigan's second Hail Mary attempt had a better outcome, with the Wolverines pulling off a wild 13-12 win .

However, anyone with the ability to pause and slo-mo the replay shown on television can tell you the clock clearly struck zero while the ball was in the air on the first attempt. The clock should have stopped as soon as Western Michigan safety Micah Davis touched the ball because he had stepped out of bounds. But, again, time expired while the ball was in the air, assuming the stadium clock displayed on broadcast was correct.

There should not have been a final play, as far as any outside observer can tell. It is rare that a blown call feels this obvious, this blatantly irreconcilable with the plain fact of a clock on a screen.

It's not just a bad call, it's a call so bad it leaves us wondering how it's even possible.

There is, however, a theory of what happened courtesy of NBC officiating analyst Terry McAulay. In the aftermath of the ruling, McAuley went through the replay with the broadcast booth and explained that while the NBC broadcast supposedly had the stadium clock synced up on its replay, the Big Ten's replay center might have had a different sync with its Hawk-Eye camera.

McAulay also said a producer confirmed that the stadium clock was in sync with the broadcasts.

"The ball isn't even close to touching the player when it goes to zero. Now their Hawk-Eye system apparently either was — had a different sync or whatever and they came up with one second when it touched the players. I don't see how that happened, assuming our clock is correct. It is clearly not touching the player. The ball is clearly still in the air when the clock goes to zero on our screen. So the Big Ten's going to have to tell a lot of us how did they get to one second on this play."

That is all speculation, but it at least adds some sort of logic to an irrational sequence of events. It would still make the outcome an outrage, as a clock at the Big Ten replay center in Rosemont, Illinois, would be overruling the clock in Ann Arbor.

McAulay was clearly 100% correct in one regard, though: The Big Ten had some explaining to do.

The conference did its best attempt later Saturday night, releasing a statement with an accompanying video of the discussion in the replay center. Naturally, the combination did little to help our understanding of what happened.

The full statement, with our emphasis added:

Following video review, it was determined Western Michigan's #18 started his jump from an established out-of-bounds position (left foot) and made contact with the ball with one second remaining on the clock. As shown in the provided video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling. Eighty-five minutes prior to the game, all broadcast cameras used for the replay system, including the camera on the game clock, are synced using a strobe system to ensure all cameras are aligned. Per NCAA Football rule 4-2-3-a, "A ball not in player control, other than a kick that scores a field goal, is out of bounds when it touches the ground, a player, a game official or anything else that is out-of-bound, or that is on or outside a boundary line." and thus the clock is stopped.

Following video review, it was determined Western Michigan's #18 started his jump from an established out-of-bounds position (left foot) and made contact with the ball with one second remaining on the clock. As shown in the provided video of what was viewed during the replay process, a side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling.

Eighty-five minutes prior to the game, all broadcast cameras used for the replay system, including the camera on the game clock, are synced using a strobe system to ensure all cameras are aligned.

Per NCAA Football rule 4-2-3-a, "A ball not in player control, other than a kick that scores a field goal, is out of bounds when it touches the ground, a player, a game official or anything else that is out-of-bound, or that is on or outside a boundary line." and thus the clock is stopped.

That would appear to pour cold water on the unsynced clocks theory, except the video shows the replay officials working with a clock that actually did show one second left when Davis touched the ball. Almost as if it was out of sync with the stadium clock.

The situation is no less bizarre with that statement, though the Mid-American Conference, Western Michigan's representative in this, did release its own statement saying video and audio provided by the Big Ten confirmed its explanation .

It's also possible NBC was incorrect about its clock being synced with the stadium clock.

We are operating in a world where there are three clocks at play here: the broadcast clock, the stadium clock and the replay center clock. It can't be denied there was a kink in the chain somewhere.