Gary Danielson blasts Army-Navy officials after controversial penalty: ‘Stay out of the game’

While the Army-Navy game stands apart, it also has a lot in common with other college football games. One trait it shares with other games is announcers who get frustrated with what they see as bad calls.

That happened in Saturday’s game with CBS’ Gary Danielson.

The controversy arose in the third quarter after Navy’s Eli Heidenreich scored on a 52-yard touchdown pass from Blake Horvath. After scoring, Heidenreich spiked the football close to the feet of Army’s Eli Modozie, who was slowly moving toward Heidenreich. While it didn’t seem as though Heidenreich’s spike was directed at Modozie, he was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Danielson did not agree with the call.

“Ah, Gene, I do not like that,” Danielson said to CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore. “I thought the Army player walked into the spike. What’s your opinion?”

“Yeah, when 18, I think it was Modozie gets near him, I think his body’s away from him,” an agreeing Steratore said. “He’s not looking at him. It doesn’t feel like he’s doing anything directed at his opponent.”

“Terrible call,” Danielson said. “We’ve got warriors out there and they make a call like that. Stay out of the game.”

The penalty was enforced on the kickoff, which helped give the Black Knights good field position. To an extent, they took advantage of that, driving 45 yards to kick a field goal, which briefly brought Army back into the game. That was as close as the Black Knights would get for the remainder of the game. Navy responded with a touchdown drive to open up a 28-13 lead and eventually won 31-13.

But while the penalty didn’t do much to impact the game’s final result, it did generate plenty of frustration.

[Photo Credit: CBS]