MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – There might be a FaceTime call on Sunday, as there is just about every week, in which Miami quarterback Cam Ward and Virginia Tech quarterback Kyron Drones connect to talk about their most recent games.
To say the two are close is an understatement. They're cousins. They're offseason training partners. They share a quarterback coach. They speak with the highest reverence for the other as both a person and as a player.
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But this week's call ... well, it might be a little weird.
Ward and the No. 7 Hurricanes (5-0, 1-0) held off Drones and the Hokies 38-34 on Friday night, a game that lasted for 60 minutes on the field and for 6 1/2 more minutes afterward as officials tried to figure out who actually won. Drones connected with Da'Quan Felton on a 30-yard desperation heave to — he thought — give Virginia Tech (2-3, 0-1) the win on the final play, only to see it wiped out after a long review by Atlantic Coast Conference officials.
“He might not answer the call,” Ward said. “I don't blame him.”
They chatted briefly on the field when the game finally was declared over, even posed for a picture together. Ward — the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy, according to BetMGM Sportsbook — slung his arm over Drones' shoulder as they walked together, and the Hokies quarterback even managed a bit of a smile in that moment. Drones thought he had just pulled off the first Hail Mary of his life.
Referees evidently agreed, because it was ruled a touchdown on the field. They changed their minds in the end. Drones did not.
“First reaction, I’d seen Miami fans go crazy, so I thought it was incomplete,” Drones said. “Then I’d seen our fans, they said it was a touchdown on the field. I don’t know how that call got overruled. I hope they made the right decision, but it is what it is."
The final play started with 3 seconds left on the clock. Drones straight-dropped back 11 yards to the Miami 41 and threw the ball nearly 50 yards, almost to the very back of the end zone.
No fewer than six players leaped for the ball. Some came down out of bounds, some still in the back of the end zone, several atop each other. Felton had his hands on the ball — at least for a moment — and was inbounds, but the question was whether he executed a catch and had control to the ground. Miami’s Isaiah Horton, who caught the go-ahead TD pass with 1:57 left and switched jerseys to play defense on the final play, emerged with the ball and held it aloft as he ran out of the scrum.
Game over, Miami wins, the stadium lights turned off and the Hurricanes' celebration was on.
Not so fast.
A few seconds later, officials ruled the play a touchdown and the Hokies started their celebration. Chaos commenced.
“The previous play is under further review,” referee Jerry Magallanes announced 30 seconds after the catch was — or wasn't — made. He repeated something similar another 30 seconds later, trying to urge coaches to get their teams off the field.
Magallanes spoke again, 1:54 after the play. “The result of the play is a touchdown,” he said, adding that the review was still happening.
The review at the ACC's offices in Charlotte, North Carolina, was just getting started. It took more than five minutes for people there to look at all the angles, before sending the final word to Magallanes. And 6 1/2 minutes after the play, Magallanes turned his microphone on for one last time.
“The ruling on the field is reversed. It’s an incomplete pass. The game is over,” he said.
The ACC put out a statement shortly past 1 a.m., saying it declared the ball was loose when a Miami player — it seemed like it was Horton — was out of bounds while making contact with the ball, which, the league said, “makes it an incomplete pass and immediately ends the play.”
The Hurricanes exhaled. The Hokies were distraught. Both had good reasons. And now, the weekly FaceTime call may or may not happen after all of this end-of-game drama and wondering if the referees got it right.
“Leaving it up to the white hats is a position you don’t want to be in,” Ward said.
Ward surely will see his cousin on the phone at some point soon, whether it happens this Sunday or not. But Drones is hoping to see Miami again on the field — and the only way that'll happen is if the teams make their way to the ACC championship game.
“Hopefully we just go 1-0 next week, 1-0 each week after that and see them again,” Drones said.
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This story has been corrected to show that Miami’s Isaiah Horton, not Tyler Rowe, emerged with the ball on the final play after switching jerseys to play defense.
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