FOOTBALL

In the NFL, after days of controversy surrounding Golden Tate’s game winning touchdown (or lack thereof) catch against the Green Bay Packers, it looks like Golden Tate has come out to talk about it with the media.  Yesterday, Tate admitted that he did, in fact, push one of the Packer defenders — a blatant pass interference that went uncalled by the replacement refs.  He said that this is football, and in the heat of a fast moment he did whatever he thought he needed to to catch the ball.  Tate actually equated the moment to playing backyard football as a kid — do what you gotta do to catch the ball.  But, Tate went on to say, that he would not apologize for anything else.  Tate mentioned that he knows a lot of people want him to just come out and say “I didn’t catch the ball”, but he doesn’t feel that way.  After all, he had an arm around the ball just the same.  The call is controversial because it could have gone either way.  However, the NFL said the Packers should have won the game.  Either way, Tate has an additional 6000 Twitter followers thanks to the media storm.

And in an addendum to this game, the replacement ref who made the now famous touchdown call, Lance Easley, stands by his decision — saying that it was clearly a touchdown.  Speaking to TMZ, Easley said of the Packers player who allegedly intercepted the ball never had singular possession because, “You have to not only have the ball but have either 2 feet or a body part on the ground, and that never happened.” Easley says this was clearly a case of simultaneous possession”.  In a simultaneous catch, the catch goes to the offensive player.  Easley added, “Put any other official who knows the rules and they would make the same call.”.  Easley typically refs High School games.

BASKETBALL
Elsewhere, in college basketball, it looks like there might be a new team on the rise.  Notre Dame is primarily known for its football program.  Their basketball program has shown spurts of greatness, but usually exits the tournament quite early.  Thursday, Notre Dame landed the #4 point guard recruit in the country, Demetrius Jackson.  Jackson is a local hero in Indiana, and he opted for Notre Dame over other big schools that would love his talent.  Notre Dame hasn’t had an NBA caliber point-guard in forever, and when you have that kind of talent on your squad, it means more national attention from the media.  Who knows, Notre Dame might enter the conversation with Kentucky and Kansas this year.  Maybe they will be a threat come tournament time.