Everyone in the place, including the Aggies DB's, thought the flag was about to fall.
This is very instructive. Please TURN OFF THE SOUND and watch 3 times. That is
exactly what you saw, and
there was not a doubt in your mind that was flagrant uncalled defensive pass interference.
Now TURN ON THE SOUND and watch
and listen. This is important.
You will experience the exact moment that Gary "Bama" Danielson talked even most RF posters, not to mention the whole world,
into completely ignoring the PI and turn the situation into an attack on Milton.
Danielson completely shirked his responsibility to focus on and call out the PI (here and elsewhere in our passing game). Danielson is the replay analyst.
Danielson created a
false narrative. With respect to the blatant pass interference (which it was the responsibility of the replay analyst to explain, it was a
complete impertinent whether a more perfect pass were possible. The pass was adequate and would have been caught without the flagrant uncalled foul. Consciously or unconsciously Danielson instead proceeded to overwrite the
direct experience of his viewership with a criticism targeted at Milton. He did this regularly throughout the game.
Whether the resulting uproar on our board about Milton that Danielson launched leading into Bama week was a mere coincidence or a habit, or a desire of his own, one can't say with certainty. That
he effectively covered for the officiating instead of thematizing it, as a competent and neutral analyst would have done, is beyond dispute.
My concern is how very many people in their posts
in this forum I have seen repeating and elaborating at length on Danielson's anti-Tennessee and anti-Milton replacement for this (and other) game-changing calls. Remarkable people do this as if "recalling" "their own" experience of the game. Anyone and everyone who has replaced the primary issue of the grossly anti-Tennessee officiating and anti-Tennessee "analyst" commentary with their unconsciously imitative speeches about Milton has been Danielson-ized and had their memories tampered with.
And for anyone who wants to defend what "Bama" Danielson said (because they as viewers or rather
hearers inadvertently permitted Danielson to cause themselves to believe that Danielson's speech was pertinent and in fact
their own idea really needed to quietly perform the experiment I suggest. And calmly reflect on it, quietly and to themselves.
This is why television is so powerful.
As for Milton,
if the game had been unbiasedly officiated, we would have had so large a lead that this negative "story" about Milton would be
completely different. The offense would have been a great positive story, just like the defense. (To take one example: if not for the uncalled PI I am discussing, followed by another penalty moving us back, the play where Milton did not pick up the 4th and 2 on the scramble
would never have occurred.
Considering also the similar, prominent uncalled PI in the endzone on a Milton pass. You will notice now that
Danielson employed his same tactic there again of replacing the question of the blatant PI -- which wiped a TD off the board -- with an impertinent story about Milton's pass. The pass was adequate and the uncalled PI, not the pass, determined the outcome. In all likelihood we would have had 21 first quarter points.
Also note further -- and review some games from last year if this is not immediately evident to you -- the passes that Danielson was attacking Milton over on the two PIs that I am discussing were exactly like some passes that Hooker threw and completed last year. They were catchable passes made incomplete by cheating with impunity. The throw was not the fault. The SEC officiating and the coverup that Danielson sold were at fault.
As for Nico, we would have had so great a lead that Nico likely would have played and gotten SEC experience. The fault was the officiating, not Heupel's for not changing QBs, which latter is a false anti-Tennessee narrative, that is refuted by a close, circumspective look at the game replay.