Louisville coach Scott Satterfield took issue with the way officials operated the clock at the end of the first half of a 37-34 loss to No. 24 Wake Forest on Saturday.
With 4 seconds left in the second quarter and the ball at the 1-yard line, Wake Forest ran a running play out of the shotgun. Though the game clock appeared to reach zero, 1 second was placed back on the clock. Nick Sciba made a 20-yard field goal — with three points the score differential in the game.
Afterward, Satterfield told reporters that the officials told him they were looking at replay to see whether there was any time left on the clock. But he noted it usually takes at least 4 seconds for a running play.
“They never blew it dead, so it’s kind of hard to tell, and I don’t know when they started the clock,” Satterfield said. “So there was 4 seconds, they’re in shotgun, they hand the ball off, and I don’t know how that was only 3 seconds. But obviously, I’m not working the clock here in Winston-Salem.”
Asked about sending the play to the ACC for review and whether there was any recourse that could be taken, Satterfield said, “There’s really no recourse. It’s going to go down as an L. There’s nothing you can do. You just got to take it.”
The postgame explanation from the officials cited Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson telling the official on his side of the field that he planned to call timeout as soon as the play ended. The officials said running back Christian Beal-Smith was down with 2 seconds left and that Clawson was signaling timeout with 1 second remaining, a ruling confirmed by the back judge and referee.
Clawson confirmed postgame that he told the official before the play that he was going to call a timeout.
“The 1-yard line — we’re going to try to score,” Clawson said. “It was a calculated risk. How sure was I? I wasn’t very sure. I hoped we had a second left, but to say that I knew that would be a 3-second play — we got a little bit lucky. Sometimes luck helps. You look back and those three points were as important as the last three points.”