I finally watched it again as well. It was the ‘Megacast’ that was originally on ESPNews, and had no announcers (a bonus), and had a high camera behind the action that showed almost the whole field of play. My thoughts:
The targeting reversal bothers me less after watching it another dozen times. It was a bad break to lose Marv, especially since he had already stepped out of the back of the end zone, so his effort was in vain. The field judge in the corner of the end zone took his hat off before Marv went up for the ball.
The ‘red line’ reversal still has my blood boiling to a red line level. I definitely don’t believe that ESPN would have shown that replay feature if it had been a Buckeye stretching to get a first down on the sideline. It was shown to sway the replay official to change the call, but it wasn’t conclusive. You can’t tell when Bowers first possessed the ball above the sideline, which is where it should be marked. He made a fine effort, putting his left hand down and turning his body as he was going out of bounds, but the replay doesn’t clearly show whether the ball crossed above the line before it advanced to be even with the ‘red line to gain’.
That broadcast also showed an angle from a camera past the end zone that was lined up with the sideline. Syncing those two views could indicate with a good deal of precision where the ball should have been marked, but I haven’t seen that done.
There were a couple of spots where a good bounce could have given the Buckeyes enough to have won; the tipped ball that fell in front of Steele as a near pick6 that
@Captain Buckeye mentioned; and just after the ‘red line’ reversal, Stetson Bennett threw a backward pass to McConkey that was dropped and McConkey fell down - if the ball would have bounced slightly away from him there were 3 of 4 Buckeyes ready to bounce on it. That would have been justice and prevented the field goal that made it 38-27.
There were 12 men on the field for the fake punt, even as the ball was snapped, nobody got off just before the snap. And Kirby did call his timeout before the snap anyway.
The only other thing I found noteworthy on the rewatch was the called running play with 24 seconds left. Egbuka went in motion from left to right, and nobody from Georgia went with him, even though this was right after an UGA timeout. The right half of the field had Fleming out wide with a corner a few yards off him, and a safety who was about 20 yards deep. If it has been noticed, a quick toss to him would have been a nice gain, perhaps a first down. Either way, it would have allowed tOSU to center the ball and call a timeout for a straight-on attempt of 40 yards or fewer. I had a severely sick feeling looking at all of the open space that the deep view showed on the right side of the field.
So those are the things that will linger for me for years, the ‘red line’ reversal coutesy of ESPN, a couple of bounces that could have been, and a stalled drive in the final 30 seconds.