During college football’s National Championship game, a pivotal play deep in Georgia territory provided a really tight decision making process in the replay booth on two elements: whether Bulldogs quarterback Stetson Bennett threw a forward pass or fumbled and did Crimson Tide defensive back Brian Branch have possession of the ball before going out of bounds.
Football Zebras has been able to obtain the tape of the replay communications, and it shows how carefully and methodically the process is navigated.
The replay official was Peter Vaas, assisted by his communicator Caz Kosiolek, both from the Atlantic Coast Conference. On a typical game during the season, they have a couple of people manipulating the video controls in the booth, and that’s pretty much it. But this wasn’t an ordinary game. Also in the booth is Dean Blandino (in his capacity as the national director of replay) and ACC officiating supervisor Dennis Hennigan. We haven’t been able to identify who, but there also appears to be a secondary replay official on a headset who is a sounding board during the replay process.