In case you didn’t notice last night, Josh Allen may or may not have sabotaged Missouri’s attempt to get back to the line before their final play of the night on Saturday,
J’Mon Moore of Missouri caught a short pass and was brought down in-bounds by Lonnie Johnson Jr. with less than a minute to go. On his way back to the line of scrimmage with the ball, he ran into a bit of an obstruction.
#41 Josh Allen is the MVP here. Knocked it out of J'Mon Moore's hand before he could throw it to the ref! pic.twitter.com/4dK0LBQdwY
— Jeff Faughender (@JFauGFX) October 8, 2017
Because Allen slapped the ball away, this could have been flagged for a delay of game penalty. That would have briefly stopped the clock and given Missouri a cheap five yards and get closer to the end zone with more time on the clock. That type of sequence could have ultimately cost Kentucky the game.
Even former Wildcat Jacob Tamme thought Allen should have gotten flagged.
The SEC als confirmed that, at the very least, the clock should have been stopped following Allen’s slap of the ball:
SEC says clock should've been stopped with 16 seconds left after Allen knocked ball loose from Moore. Instead MU had 3 seconds after spike
— Dave Matter (@Dave_Matter) October 8, 2017
Allen’s knockout wasn’t the only issue for Missouri here; the refs were moving as if they were stuck in quicksand and the official at the line fumbled the ball around a few times. In the end they got screwed out of as many as two extra plays.
Moore didn’t have a lot to say about Allen’s defense mechanism, but he made it clear he wasn’t happy.
J'Mon Moore was not happy postgame after a UK player swatted the ball from his hands causing time to wind down.
— Tyler Murry (@TylerMurry_) October 8, 2017
: https://t.co/dn6vGR3MId pic.twitter.com/ZnI53FQFVh
Either Josh Allen wasn’t aware of what happened or he’s employing a great “play dumb” strategy...I’ll let you decide (via Nick Roush).
You have to admire this “I don’t know what happened” look by Allen.
Priceless. Head coach Mark Stoops shrugged the issue off as well, saying he didn’t “know what was going on.”
Hey, 5-1 is 5-1.