Double-overtime. A Scott Stadium throng poised to celebrate Virginia’s first top-10 home conquest in two decades. A record Friday night ESPN audience.
Amid that tension, Florida State quarterback Tommy Castellanos threw a perfect, 22-yard, third-down pass to the Seminoles’ most gifted receiver. But Duce Robinson, indefensible throughout the game, bobbled the ball repeatedly as he ran through the end line, Virginia cornerback Jordan Robinson straining in pursuit.
Back judge Pat Ryan immediately signaled touchdown, bringing undefeated and No. 8 FSU within a two-point conversion of forcing a third overtime. But spectators and viewers, players and coaches, knew what was coming.
For the sixth time on the night, a call would be reviewed via instant replay. And for the sixth time, the largest college football Friday audience in ESPN history — Thanksgiving weekend excluded — would watch and, most revealing, listen to the entire process.
This courtesy of a bold innovation introduced this season by the ACC and its television partner that brings unsurpassed transparency to football officiating that every league, college and professional, should embrace.
“In all of that pandemonium and intensity and atmosphere,” said Michael Strickland, the conference’s senior associate commissioner for football, “I think what America heard and saw was a very composed referee, a very composed replay official, a very composed replay communicator and a very composed collaborative replay official … working through their process, not rushing to a decision and coming to a unanimous decision as to what they saw on video with indisputable evidence.”
Indeed, the foursome of Nate Black on the field, Steve Joest and Ryan McCleery in the stadium replay booth and Mark Bitar in the league’s game day operations center in Charlotte went through their paces methodically but quickly. McCleery, the replay communicator, introduced the different camera views, while Black, Joest and Bitar focused on whether Duce Robinson had secured the catch before stepping out of the end zone.
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On the air, ESPN analyst Louis Riddick and rules expert Matt Austin, a former referee, agreed that the call should be reversed. Meanwhile, the crowd of 50,107 roared with each scoreboard replay, and a home audience that averaged 4.4 million and peaked at 6.9 million, was able to watch and listen to the collaborative replay rather than endure a commercial break.
In split-screen, ESPN showed the defining replay view in super-slow motion, Black on the field under the hood, and Bitar on a headset in Charlotte facing a bank of monitors.
“It’s still moving here. It’s still moving, moving, moving, still moving. Do we agree that there’s no control until he gets out” of bounds?
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“OK, we’re going to reverse. Are we all in agreement?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Black, Joest and Bitar had reached consensus in about 60 seconds.
Black announced the call to the stadium.
“After further review, the pass was incomplete.”
ESPN’s Bob Wischusen and Riddick applauded the look behind the curtain.
“We just can’t thank the ACC enough for allowing us…” Wischusen began.
“It’s so good,” Riddick interjected.
“… The transparency is tremendous,” Wischusen said.
When Ja’Son Prevard subsequently intercepted Castellanos in the end zone, Virginia reveled in a 46-38 victory, its first at Scott Stadium over a top-10 team since a 2005 upset of Florida State.
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“It was a moment that the officiating program and the replay program and all of the work that many, many people do to be prepared for those moments, they rose to the occasion,” Strickland said. “That was wonderful to see, and that’s part of the reason the commissioner signed off on doing this. We believe in our people, we believe in our program, we believe in our process.”
Kudos to ACC commissioner Jim Phillips for approving the replay access experiment, unprecedented in college football, during the offseason. And props to the league and network executives who last October brainstormed the concept following replay decisions in Miami’s victories over Virginia Tech and Cal that confused fans in real time.
Why, after a review of more than six minutes, had replay overturned the Hokies’ last-play Hail Mary touchdown pass from Kyron Drones to Da’Quan Felton? Why were the Hurricanes not flagged for targeting Fernando Mendoza, a penalty that would have allowed the Bears to run out the clock?
The conference and ESPN identified two ideal windows in which to debut the enhanced access: ACC Network’s prime-time Saturday games, and ESPN’s Friday contests. Both packages have the same production crew each week, which streamlined the network’s training and preparation, and the exclusive Friday telecast allows for complete attention in the operations center.
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“We are proud to build upon our efforts to bring additional transparency surrounding ACC football officiating to fans throughout the entire season,” Phillips said in a statement. “We appreciate the partnership with ESPN and ACC Network to elevate the viewer experience and implement what’s never been done before in college football.”
The Duce Robinson catch/no catch was among several pivotal sequences that replay parsed Friday in Charlottesville.
Officials upheld a first-quarter fumble by Florida State running back Gavin Sawchuk that UVA’s Fisher Camac recovered to set up the Cavaliers’ first touchdown, overturned a fumble by Seminoles receiver Micahi Danzi, and affirmed a targeting foul on Cavaliers safety Antonio Clary.
The targeting prompted a dialogue easy for viewers to grasp.
“I see a lowering (of the head) and a launch. I see forcible contact to the neck area, and I see it to the helmet. Is everyone in agreement on this?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“OK, so the ruling is going to be upheld.”
The drama hit overdrive in the second half — and beyond.
With 43 seconds remaining in regulation, Castellanos absorbed a jarring hit from Daniel Rickert but still managed to throw an 11-yard, fourth-and-goal touchdown pass to a diving Randy Pittman to force overtime. Replay officials upheld the catch, as they did Trell Harris’ toe-tap in the back of the end zone for a Virginia two-point conversion in the second overtime.
Each decision was unanimous among Black, Joest and Bitar, mirroring every replay ruling in the enhanced-access games to date.
“Part of the risk we have taken is, there will probably be a play where there is not unanimity,” Strickland said, “and we have rolled the dice that the world is going to hear that and be OK with it.”
So encouraging were the early returns on the enhanced access that in Week 3, the conference added a game to the docket. With the ACCN Saturday night contest, Vanderbilt at Virginia Tech, contracted to have an SEC officiating crew, the ACC shifted the replay access to Clemson at Georgia Tech.
Sure enough, a crucial replay decision unfolded as the team of referee Adam Savoie, replay official Todd Evans and Bitar overturned a fourth-quarter, game-tying touchdown pass from Clemson’s Cade Klubnik to Josh Sapp.
The rave reviews went viral.
I absolutely love that the ACC has real time audio of replay reviews!
#12 Clemson scores what appears to be a huge downtown, to level the score with Georgia Tech 21-21, but the call on the field is overturned as the received never secured possession before going out of bounds. pic.twitter.com/mwPT3iVVNQ
— Grant Smith Ellis (@GrantSmithEllis) September 13, 2025
“We’ve been extraordinarily pleased with how this experiment has gone through five weeks of the season,” Strickland said. “It was important to us that this access experiment not interfere in any way with the replay officials doing their job.
“As we know, all of those folks are human, and so there will always be errors. However, the errors that have occurred this year (on replay) we do not attribute in any way to enhanced access. In fact, any errors that we’ve had occurred in games where there wasn’t enhanced access.”
The most visible replay error occurred in Syracuse’s home overtime win over Connecticut, when a late alert from the replay booth to the field over a possible Orange fumble led to a review one snap after the fact. As ESPN first reported, veteran ACC referee Gary Patterson resigned over the matter.
“I guarantee you (officials) spend as much time, maybe even more, each week (than players) preparing for that week’s game,” Strickland said. “This access shows that they’re human, it shows that they’re prepared, it shows that there’s nothing untoward occurring. It’s just four people who love football and are trying to contribute to the game in as fair and successful a manner as they are humanly capable of doing.”
The positive feedback from fans, league administrators and national peers has motivated ESPN and the conference to consider other innovations that distinguish ACC broadcasts. In fact, Strickland teased that one will debut on ABC’s presentation Saturday night of Miami-Florida State.
“We were the very first (conference) to declare that we were going to do collaborative replay,” Strickland said. “We were the very first to put a (camera) in our command center when we moved our office to Charlotte, and now we’re the very first to provide the audio access.
“That’s three times over the last 10 years that we’ve been first-movers in this space, and it’s proven to be successful each of the three times we’ve done so. We’ve been doing this for years and years and years. Now the world finally gets a chance to see it.”
David Teel, david.teel@virginiamedia.com
