In what was one of the most bizarre final minutes of game action, Liberty escaped Saturday night with a 42-41 win over Indiana State thanks to a blocked 23 yard field goal by Corbin Jackson. The game should have never come down to that kick though, as just 4 plays earlier, it looked like Liberty had forced a turnover on downs and was set to take over with 40 seconds left in the game. All that the Flames had to do was kneel on the ball one time and the victory was in hand.

But that’s not what happened.

While all of Williams Stadium was celebrating the pending win, referee Jerry Magallanes turned on his microphone and announced that Liberty had called a timeout before that play was snapped.

Coach Gill acknowledged postgame that he called the timeout before the game. “I think it was called beforehand,” Gill said. “On the headsets, the defensive staff was saying ‘I need a timeout, give me a timeout coach, timeout coach.’ So, I responded to my defensive coordinator to take a timeout, and it was the right call. I called the timeout probably right before the play. I couldn’t tell because I was running down the sideline to make the call.”

You can watch the replay of the game here, pick it up with 20 minutes left in the broadcast to see the sequence of events.

On 3rd down, the referees blew the play dead with 1:03 left on the game clock as seen here.

On the 4th down play, which ended up not happening, the ball was snapped with 47 seconds left as seen here.

After a very long review, the officials set the play clock back to 1:04. First, as we have already discovered, the previous play ended at 1:03, so there’s no way it could be back to 1:04, but we will give the refs the benefit of the doubt for that 1 second error. Still, from 1:03 to :47 is 16 seconds. So, if Coach Gill called the timeout at 1:03, as the officials are stating, then the officials were unable to stop the play in those 16 seconds between the two plays? That is ludicrous. But it gets better.

The ref, seen below at the 33 yard line, is the one who comes in at the end of the 4th down play that ended up not counting to blow the play dead. You can see him shaking his head and blowing the whistle. This is with 40 seconds left on the clock. So, if Gill called the timeout at 1:03, a full 23 seconds has elapsed from the time the timeout was granted and the officials even acknowledging the timeout.

It took an additional 34 seconds in real time after the end of this fake 4th down play, when the entire stadium is celebrating the pending Liberty win, for the officials to announce that Liberty called a timeout before that play. So, add those 34 seconds of real time to the 23 seconds of game time and we’re now a full 57 seconds that it took Coach Gill to call a timeout and the referees to grant the timeout. When is that ever acceptable?