They say crazy things happening during Pac-12 After Dark. Okay, no one says that, but a pretty crazy thing happened to interrupt Saturday night’s game between the Washington Huskies and Stanford Cardinal.
The Huskies were cruising to victory in the fourth quarter, holding a 40-15 lead with a little over six minutes to go. Suddenly, Stanford coach David Shaw caught the attention of an official to let him know that a drone was hovering over the stadium.
As the game was being broadcast on FS1, the obvious assumption was that it was a Fox drone with a camera (like they had used in the USFL). However, play-by-play announcer Alex Faust made it clear that the drone wasn’t theirs.
“I kind of feeling like I’m looking at a UFO, even though I’m not,” Fox analyst Petro Papadakis added. “Thank goodness that school starts on Monday and these young people will have something else to occupy their time other than disrupting the fourth quarter of this fine Pac-12 after-dark Pac-12 football game.”
After a 10-15 minute drone delay, the game started up again and Washington finished off Stanford for a 40-22 victory to move to 4-0. Huskies quarterback Michael Penix Jr. threw for 309 yards and two touchdowns, earning the saying on his new t-shirt.
While not a scourge on pro and college sports yet, drone delays are becoming more common. We’ve seen two separate MLB games get delayed by random drones potentially interfering in gameplay.
Still no word on where the drone came from and who was flying it. In the meantime, if you want to see some Husky Stadium drone footage, you have to turn to ESPN for the time being.
https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/1572332329988915200
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About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.