DURHAM – As confident as Antoine Green was that his apparent game-winning touchdown catch with 16 seconds left in North Carolina’s game at Duke on Saturday night was good, he and everyone inside Wallace Wade Stadium had to wait out a lengthy review by the officials.
The review actually lasted three minutes and twenty-four seconds, though it seemed like much longer than that. Much, much longer.
At stake was possibly the outcome of the Tar Heels-Blue Devils thriller, making the wait a nail-biting, heart-palpitating 204 seconds. It was long enough for Green to send a prayer, and for UNC Coach Mack Brown to get his offense ready to run another play if the call on the field, which was a touchdown, was reversed.
It wasn’t, and UNC won, 38-35, completing a nine-play, 74-yard drive that started with 2:09 remaining on the clock.
“Praying. For real,” Green replied, when asked what he was doing during the review. “I was talking with everybody on the sideline, and they were like, ‘touchdown, touchdown.’”
Yes, but no.
Reviews can be tricky, and don’t always go according to conventional wisdom. But once Green actually watched the replay, he was at ease.
“I looked up at the scoreboard screen one time to see the review, and I was like, ‘I don’t need to see it again,’” he said, smiling.
What he and everyone in the stadium plus those watching on TV saw was Carolina (6-1, 3-0 ACC) quarterback Drake Maye roll to his right, point toward Green, and they toss him a pass toward the right side of the end zone for an eight-yard score. It appeared on some replay angles that Green slightly stepped out of bounds before catching the ball, which would make him ineligible to touch the ball.
But one angle from above the press box side of the stadium showed a tad bit of grass in between the senior receiver’s left cleat and the sideline. So, the call on the field was not overturned.
"Drake tagged me on a fade route,” Green said, explaining what happened on the second-and-seven play that started with 21 seconds remaining. “I saw him scramble, and I didn’t want to be dead, so I tried to stay active.
“And I just came back to him to be quarterback friendly. He threw me a good ball."
Maye set a career-high with 380 yards passing on the night, with his final eight coming on the connection with Green. He said Green made a “great play” and that he just wanted to give the veteran a chance to make something happen.
It worked out, though the prolific quarterback sweated it out a little until he saw the video board replay.
“That replay was about as close as it gets,” Maye said. “It shows (it’s) a game of inches.”
Green finished the night with four receptions for 112 yards and that score. After missing the first three games with a shoulder injury, he has caught 13 passes for 384 yards, which is a whopping average of 29.5 yards per catch.
None bigger, however, than the game-winner Saturday night.
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