With Missouri moving the ball toward the red zone with about 20 seconds to play, Tigers wide receiver J’Mon Moore got up from the end of the play and had the ball knocked out of his hands by a Kentucky defender. The intent was pretty obvious, as the clock was running and the football now needed to be recovered by the official as the precious seconds ticked away. Instead of having roughly 16 seconds left to play, Missouri only had three seconds left on the clock after spiking the football.
After reviewing the play in the SEC offices, the conference issued a statement confirming the officials on the field missed the action that should have stopped the clock.
“Had that action been seen by the officials in real time, the clock would have been stopped at approximately 0:16 seconds and restarted on the ready for the play signal,” the SEC statement said.
With 16 seconds on the clock, Missouri could have potentially run two or three more plays to go for a game-tying score to set up a potential go-ahead extra-point.