Miami vs. Duke: Score, Highlights and Twitter Reaction

The story begins with the Miami Hurricanes needing one stop. They didn't get it. They were about to lose.

Then this happened:

After letting the No. 22-ranked Duke Blue Devils drive down the field to take a three-point lead with six seconds left, Miami lateraled the ensuing kickoff eight times, returning it 91 yards as Corn Elder scored a touchdown with no time left to give Miami (5-3, 2-2 ACC) an improbable 30-27 victory Saturday night.

The Hurricanes' official Twitter account summed it up perfectly:

It was an active night for the referees, who called 23 penalties against Miami, including three on Duke's final drive, which ended on a Thomas Sirk one-yard touchdown run that helped give Duke (6-2, 3-1 ACC) a 27-24 lead.

After all of the laterals and chaos finally halted on the final kickoff return, the officials called an illegal block in the back against Miami.

The officials went under the hood to take a look at the play to see whether all of the laterals were legal and whether any knees touched the ground along the way.

Neither of those things happened. Then the officials announced the play was under further review—to see whether the block in the back actually happened. USA Today's Dan Wolken had the best summary of the next 10 minutes:

The situation reminded CBS Sports' Will Brinson of another officiating instance:

Finally, after the concluding review, the referee picked up the flag and ruled the play a touchdown. Yahoo Sports' Pat Forde thought the circus was in town:

All of the hoopla came one week after the Hurricanes suffered their worst loss in program history at the hands of the Clemson Tigers, 58-0. The team fired head coach Al Golden the next day. Miami also had to go into this game without starting quarterback Brad Kaaya, who did not make the trip to Durham, North Carolina. Redshirt freshman Malik Rosier started in his place.

The two-sport athlete threw for 272 yards and two touchdowns, and it turned out to be a good day for interim head coach Larry Scott.

Just when Miami was on the verge of dropping to 4-4 and falling further away from bowl consideration, the Hurricanes pulled off an improbable victory. They are now one win away from bowl eligibility.

Meanwhile, the heartbreaking loss for Duke takes almost all of the luster away from next week's matchup against the North Carolina Tar Heels for first place in the ACC Coastal Division.

On Sunday, the ACC announced suspensions for the officiating crew:

"

The Atlantic Coast Conference has announced the suspension of the on-field officiating crew as well as the replay official and communicator following the Miami at Duke game on Saturday, October 31. 

The announcement follows the league’s weekly review of game footage, as well as reports and interviews with officials and administrators.

The series of errors during the final play of the game will result in the suspension of the entire crew for two ACC games.

"

Postgame Reaction

Duke head coach David Cutcliffe wanted answers. He didn't get any.

Cutcliffe's opening remark in his postgame press conference after the heartberaking loss his Blue Devils suffered sounded like a normal head coach's remarks after a game that would end like that.

But once you dissect how the final play happened and add the context of his quotes, the first thought that comes to mind, is how in the world did the officials screw this one up?

Here are Cutcliffe's opening remarks, per Adam Rowe. You can watch his presser in its entirety by clicking here:

"I know you all want to talk about officiating at the end, there," Cutcliffe said. "I wish I could shed more light on what happened, but no one would explain to me exactly what happened. I heard exactly what you all heard."

Keep in mind, the officials went to go look at this play twice. Once to see if the laterals were, indeed, backwards passes, and the second to see if there was, in fact a block in the back on the field. Never is a penalty supposed to be reversed unless under extreme circumstances.

Meanwhile, no one bothered to check if Hurricanes running back Mark Walton's knee was down in the midst of all the laterals.

After further review, per Twitter user @Sctvman, there's no question the knee was down:

So, the refs ended up getting two parts wrong. A penalty on Miami was upheld after review, and a runner's knee was down. If there's any question as to why Cutcliffe is mad at the result, there's evidence to prove it.

Perhaps the more confusing aspect of that entire review was that the head official announced that Miami would get an untimed down to end the game. The team that committed the penalty was going to get one down to win the game, which also makes no sense. Nothing about the final ruling made sense, but it was so confusing that Cutcliffe was actually content on having Miami get one more down, per Stephen Wiseman of the Durham Herald-Sun:

Wiseman also noted that Duke is expecting answers from the ACC offices, but it'd be difficult to get any resolution regarding this:

On the flip side, controversial or not, this was a much-needed win for a Miami program that has spent the last week in turmoil. Interim head coach Larry Scott rallied his players to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Scott said in his postgame presser that the kick return was actually some variation of a play that Miami had practiced.

"We kind of said, 'You know what? It's a last-stitch effort, but it's something we've worked on,'" Scott said. "And you've got to believe in it. That's something you do when you're in third grade, fourth grade and they say seventh period today is P.E."

In short, what happened on the field on that final play was a figment of everyone's imagination. It didn't happen and will be forgotten at some point. Except for Duke, who had high aspirations of going into its showdown with North Carolina next week as two undefeated conference teams.

That will not be the case next Saturday. Miami played well enough in the first half to win the game, but Duke was not going to be kept out of it for long. It was set to be a stellar finish with a Duke victory, but that one play will go down as one of the most miraculous and absurd play that should have never counted.

Alas, Miami won and the 'Canes have a new lease on life.