Miami-Ole Miss instant classic marred by potential game-changing missed penalty

The Miami Hurricanes are heading home to play in the CFP National Championship Game on their home turf (or at least thereabouts) at Hard Rock Stadium after outlasting the Ole Miss Rebels in an absolute thriller of a Fiesta Bowl on Thursday night. Carson Beck broke contain with just 18 seconds remaining in the game to take a 31-27 leave, giving the Rebs one last desperation shot to get the win. But the refs might have robbed them of that opportunity.

Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who turned into a College Football Playoff supernova yet again in the fourth quarter, completed two throws to put the Rebels well within range for a Hail Mary on the shorter end of the spectrum. He got the throw off and threw a moon-ball to the left corner of the end zone. It fell to the turf for a Miami win — at least until you got a look at the replay. It certainly looked like Hurricanes DB Ethan O'Connor had a hold of WR De'Zhaun Stribiling's jersey and pads while the ball was in the air, which ultimately took him to the ground.

Ole Miss fans should want answers for apparent missed pass interference

Now, even if a flag had been thrown, that wouldn't have been the win for Ole Miss — they would've still had one more play to try and score the game-winning touchdown. But that's the thing in itself. They would've had one more chance, and they didn't get it. And I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an official, but that looks like pretty textbook pass interference from where I'm sitting.

When ESPN caught wind of the uproar over the missed call, they called in Bill LeMonnier, the rules analyst for the CFP broadcast, to ask what he saw. He backed up the officials on the no-call, saying that it was both players essentially jockeying for positioning. The deciding factor, he said, was that neither player gained an advantage because of the contact.

Are we sure about that?

That doesn't seem to be what the replay shows. Yes, Stribling is getting some hand-fighting in there, but it also largely looks like the Rebels receiver is trying to get free of the hold or interference from O'Connor rather than trying to gain an advantage. More simply, he was trying to re-even the playing field to try and make a catch, not gain an advantage himself.

You have to feel for Ole Miss fans. Whether the ESPN rules analyst or anyone else agrees with them (I happen to, for what it's worth), their season was ended at least one play prematurely because of a missed penalty. And some will say you can't call DPI on a Hail Mary because of the chaos — but that's crazy talk. It's a penalty then in that moment just like it is in the rest of the 60 minutes of action.

And what's worse, a game that should've been remembered for being one of the best college football showdowns of the season and even in recent memory is now likely to be remembered largely for the lack of a flag on the final play.

Miami-Ole Miss is less of an instant classic because of the no-call

Coming out of this game, we should have so much to talk about.

Carson Beck's redemption arc after his time at Georgia came to a fizzling end with an injury and no hardware is almost complete, and his game-winning touchdown run was right out of a movie. We should be talking about Chambliss becoming a superhero in the clutch for the second straight CFP game. And let's not forget that back-and-forth action that had fans on the edges of their seats with four lead changes in the final seven minutes of the game.

The Fiesta Bowl had all the trappings of a college football game fans won't soon forget. Unfortunately, it feels like the predominant narrative coming out of it is the lack of a flag on the final play.

There's an adage that you'll hear from refs and officials, that they don't want to be the main storyline in a game. And in fairness to that point, they're not wrong. You have to believe that's one of the reasons why they kept the flags neatly tucked away on the final play of Miami-Ole Miss on Thursday night.

By doing so, however, they became an even bigger story. There wasn't even a discussion about it, at least not from what we saw. It was treated as a cut-and-dry play, nothing more. But if you go back and watch the video and, of course, talk to an Ole Miss fan right now, there was a whole lot more to it than that — and the repercussions of not even thinking about calling a penalty will live on in Oxford for quite a while now.