When Getting It Right Isn't So Simple: Thoughts for the Day, Labor Day, 2026

Subtitle: From one second on a football field to reasonable doubt in a jury room

When Did We Start Expecting Referees to Be Perfect?

Yesterday, my sister-in-law Jan asked what I thought about the controversial ending of Saturday’s Michigan-Western Michigan football game.

My answer was pretty simple: Western deserved to win. Michigan didn’t. But the officials followed the replay process, Michigan was given one more second, and Michigan took advantage of it.

It also got me thinking about something bigger.

If you watched the end of the game, you saw one of the strangest finishes I can remember.

Western Michigan appeared to have pulled off a stunning upset at Michigan Stadium. Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood threw a Hail Mary into the end zone. It fell incomplete. The television clock showed 0:00.

Game over. Except it wasn’t. The officials went to instant replay.

After reviewing the play, Big Ten replay officials determined that Western Michigan defensive back Micah Davis had established himself out of bounds before touching the football. Under NCAA rules, that made the ball dead when he touched it. More importantly, the Big Ten’s synchronized replay system showed that contact occurring with one second remaining. The officials put one second back on the clock.

Michigan got one more play. Underwood threw another Hail Mary, JJ Buchanan caught it for a 47-yard touchdown, and Michigan won 13-12. Western Michigan went from celebrating perhaps the biggest victory in its football history to losing the game—all because of one second discovered by technology.

Whether the Big Ten ultimately got that second right is still being debated. NBC’s broadcast clock appeared to tell a different story, and NBC’s rules analyst questioned how the replay system and television pictures could produce different results.

But I’m interested in a different question.

Would any of this have happened 20 years ago?

I don’t think so.

Before sophisticated instant replay, the official would have watched the play, seen the clock reach zero and declared the game over.

Maybe television would have shown a replay afterward suggesting there should have been one second remaining. Fans would have complained. Michigan fans would have argued about the officiating. But Western Michigan would have won the game.

Instead, technology has fundamentally changed what we expect from sports officials.

From Getting It Right to Getting It Perfect

Instant replay was introduced for a perfectly understandable reason. We wanted to correct obvious mistakes.

A receiver catches a pass but the official rules it incomplete. A runner’s knee hits the ground before he fumbles. Technology gives us the ability to look again.

And when millions of dollars, championships and careers can depend upon one call, why wouldn’t we want to get it right?

The problem is that somewhere along the way, “get it right” became “get it perfect.”

We freeze video frame by frame. We magnify whether a toe touched a white line. We determine whether a runner’s hand reached a base a fraction of a second before a tag.

And Saturday at Michigan Stadium, we tried to determine whether a football touched a player’s hand while he was out of bounds with one second remaining on a synchronized clock.

That isn’t officiating the way I grew up watching sports. It isn’t like the sports officiating I did for over 50 years. It’s forensic science.

Technology Has Changed the Official’s Job

There’s another part of this we don’t talk about enough.

Officials today aren’t simply judged on what they see on the field. They’re also judged on whether they properly use technology.

There are replay protocols, command centers, synchronized cameras and procedures determining which plays can be reviewed and what evidence is necessary to overturn a call.

The Big Ten says that before Saturday’s game, the cameras used by the replay system—including a camera focused directly on the stadium clock—were synchronized using a strobe system. Think about that.

We have reached the point where officiating a college football game requires a technological infrastructure capable of synchronizing multiple video cameras with a game clock so officials can determine what happened within fractions of a second.

And yet we’re still arguing about the call.

Technology Solved One Problem and Created Another

Instant replay unquestionably corrects mistakes. It shouldn’t be eliminated. But it has created something we probably didn’t anticipate. It has changed our tolerance for human error.

When officials had only their eyes, we understood that they would occasionally miss something.

Today we have dozens of cameras, slow motion, high-definition video, computer synchronization and replay command centers. So when officials still get something wrong—or when two technologies appear to tell us different things—we become even more frustrated.

We expect perfection because technology has convinced us perfection is possible.

Saturday’s Michigan-Western Michigan ending may be the perfect example. Without replay, Western Michigan almost certainly leaves Michigan Stadium winning 12-7.

Instead, technology found one second. Michigan used it. And the Wolverines won 13-12.

Maybe the officials got it exactly right. Maybe they didn’t. But one thing seems certain: The technology that was supposed to end arguments about officiating has instead given us entirely new things to argue about.

And perhaps the real question isn’t whether instant replay is good or bad. It’s this: How much precision do we really want from a game played—and officiated—by human beings?

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When Everyone Knows Who Did It—but the Jury Still Can’t Decide

I’ve been following the Lindsay Clancy murder trial with a perspective that I suspect most people watching the case don’t have.

Nearly 50 years ago, I sat on a jury in a murder trial that presented us with essentially the same fundamental question.

There was no question who killed the victim.

The question was whether the person who killed him should be held criminally responsible because of his mental state at the time.

I learned during those two weeks—and especially during three difficult days of jury deliberations—just how complicated that question can become.

The Case I Still Remember

It was the late 1970s.

A father had gotten into an argument with his daughter’s boyfriend. During the confrontation, the boyfriend beat him up and then left the house.

The father followed him.

What the boyfriend didn’t know was that the father had a three-inch pocketknife.

The two men confronted one another again. During that argument, the father stabbed the boyfriend once.

One stab wound.

Unfortunately, the knife entered his heart.

The boyfriend died.

There was no mystery about who had done it. Our job wasn’t to determine whether the defendant had stabbed and killed the young man. He had.

Our job was much more difficult. What was going on in his mind when he did it?

The prosecution presented evidence that the defendant was legally responsible for killing another human being.

The defense presented compelling evidence that the defendant’s mental state at that moment made him legally not responsible for what he had done.

We listened. We debated.

And we couldn’t agree.

After three days of deliberations, our jury was divided 11-1.

Eleven jurors believed the defendant should be found not guilty because of temporary insanity. One juror believed he was guilty but mentally ill.

We couldn’t convince her. She couldn’t convince us. The result was a hung jury.

Nearly half a century later, I still remember those deliberations.

Which Brings Me to Lindsay Clancy

That’s one reason I’ve followed the Lindsay Clancy case so closely.

Clancy was charged with murdering her three young children in their Massachusetts home in January 2023. There was no dispute that she killed them.

The central question was whether she was criminally responsible when she did it.

Her defense argued that Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis and lacked the ability required under Massachusetts law to be held criminally responsible.

Prosecutors presented a very different picture. They argued that her actions demonstrated planning and that she understood what she was doing and knew it was wrong.

The trial lasted nearly six weeks. More than 80 witnesses testified.

Then twelve ordinary citizens were sent into a room and asked to answer a question that psychiatrists, lawyers and other experts had spent weeks arguing about:

What was happening inside Lindsay Clancy’s mind when she killed her children?

After nearly 40 hours of deliberations over seven days, the jurors couldn’t agree.

The apparent split was 11-1, with eleven jurors reportedly prepared to find Clancy not criminally responsible and one juror holding out.

The judge eventually declared a mistrial.

When I read that, I immediately thought back to that jury room almost 50 years ago.

I understood.

What People Outside the Jury Room Don’t See

It’s easy to watch a trial on television, read newspaper accounts or follow social media and decide what the verdict should be.

Guilty. Not guilty. Case closed.

It is very different when you’re sitting in the jury box.

You see the defendant every day. You see the victim’s family. You listen to witnesses. You hear experts offer completely different interpretations of the same person’s behavior.

Then the judge explains that your responsibility isn’t necessarily to decide what you personally believe is morally right.

Your responsibility is to apply the law.

The courtroom doors close. The lawyers disappear. The judge disappears.

And twelve ordinary people sit around a table trying to make one of the most consequential decisions they will ever make about another human being.

How Do You Determine Someone’s State of Mind?

That’s what makes cases involving mental illness particularly difficult.

Physical evidence can sometimes be relatively straightforward. A fingerprint exists or it doesn’t. DNA matches or it doesn’t.

But how do you prove what was happening inside someone’s mind at a particular moment?

Psychiatrists can evaluate a defendant. Medical records can document previous behavior. Family members can describe what they witnessed.

Prosecutors can point to evidence of planning and purposeful behavior. Defense attorneys can point to evidence of psychosis and irrational behavior.

But ultimately twelve people who aren’t psychiatrists have to take all that evidence and answer a legal question about someone’s mental state.

Sometimes reasonable people reach different conclusions.

The Holdout Juror

I also understand something else about the Clancy case.

It’s tempting to criticize the lone juror.

I remember the frustration in our jury room when eleven of us believed one thing and one person believed another.

After three days, we wanted a verdict. But unanimity means unanimity.

Eleven people don’t get to overrule the twelfth simply because they’re tired of deliberating.

The holdout juror has the same responsibility as every other juror: listen to the evidence, follow the judge’s instructions and reach the conclusion his or her conscience and understanding of the law require.

That’s sometimes frustrating. It’s also an important protection built into our criminal justice system.

Almost 50 Years Later

I don’t remember every detail of the murder trial I sat through in the late 1970s. But I remember the weight of the responsibility.

A young man was dead. His family deserved justice. A man’s future was partly in our hands. And the defendant was entitled to the protections provided by our legal system.

Twelve ordinary people had to decide what justice meant. We couldn’t reach a verdict.

The Lindsay Clancy jury couldn’t either.

That doesn’t necessarily mean either jury failed.

Sometimes a hung jury reflects something uncomfortable but important about our justice system:

The evidence can be compelling on both sides.

Reasonable people can listen to the same testimony and reach different conclusions.

Certainty can be extraordinarily difficult to find when the question isn’t what happened, but rather what was happening inside that person’s mind when they did it?

I learned that sitting in a jury room almost 50 years ago. The Lindsay Clancy jury has just been reminded of it.

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Quote of the Day: “Ultimately, the refs did not cost us this game.” — Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor

Taylor said making excuses would allow his team to become bitter rather than better.

Orchid of the Day: Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor, athletic director Dan Bartholomae and president Russ Kavalhuna for their gracious reaction following the controversial ending of the football game.

Onion of the Day: Pathetic. Michigan’s performance between the first drive and the final play in its game against Western Michigan.

Questions of the Day: Was Western Michigan robbed? And perhaps the more important question: Has technology fundamentally changed sports officiating—and have we reached the point where we expect technology to make officials perfect?

Lyrics of the Day: “Still, a man hears what he wants to hear…but disregards the rest”

Answer to Lyrics of the Day, September 4, 2026: People Have the Power — Patti Smith

Video of the Day: : Bryce Underwood, Michigan beat Western Michigan on last-second Hail Mary | Big Ten on NBC Sports