The Replay Value of ACC Conference Football

It was a dark day for the Clemson Tigers when coach Tommy Bowden looked up at the video replay board.

As it turns out, he clearly saw that receiver Chansi Stuckey had gotten his elbow in bounds and scored a touchdown against Florida State. But the officials apparently hadn't seen it that way in real time, hadn't ruled it a score and the 25-second play clock was running out on the Tigers to snap the ball.

Five, four, three...

''I saw for sure it was in and I figured if I called timeout and they could see it three more times they were either going to change it or they weren't getting off that field alive,'' he said with a laugh.

College football across the country had that option last season as the ACC and eight of the other 11 Division I-A conferences experimented with a replay system. In the ACC, games were stopped 78 times for a review with 28 calls being reversed, about 36 percent or a little more than the national average of 31 percent. The ACC's average time of 1:33 for its stoppages was tied for the quickest and was far better than the national average of 1:55.

''It worked great,'' said Hunt, praising the league and schools for investing in state-of-the-art equipment and extensive training.

Based on that kind of rave review from Hunt and his counterparts around the country, the NCAA voted to add replay to the rule book. ACC officials couldn't be happier. ''Outstanding,'' longtime referee Jack Childress said. ''I wish we had had it years ago.''

''The last thing you ever want to do as a football official is affect the game,'' Childress said. ''It's horrible. You called it with your best judgment, using all the years of experience; that's where courage comes in. But I can't tell you the times you come home at 3 in the morning, plug in a tape, fast forward it to two minutes left in the second quarter to a call the side judge made and say, 'Whew. Thank god he got it right.' Instant replay has eliminated the need for that.''

Will ACC Conference Football thank this new ''replay rule'' for years to come? Here are some more odds from Bodog on some ACC football teams to win the BCS:

Clemson Tigers 80/1

Miami Hurricanes 18/1

North Carolina State Wolfpack 125/1

Maryland Terrapins 100/1