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Re: It could happen to you (but we hope not)
Thanks for writing a very thorough post that (seems) to do a good job of trying to relate the whole debacle from a neutral standpoint. Issues like this have turned into flame-fests before... so far this thread has done well to remain a tempered discussion, focused more on "wow, that situation is overwhelmingly unfortunate - no one involved had an easy time!"
It seems like while the refing at Utah wasn't perfect (just as it never is), the only really big blunder was the decision to replay match 2 over 8 seconds lost at the pedestal.
The not-calling-a-dead-ball-when-a-blue-ball-fell-into-a-red-robot? Well, if they had called it after 2-5 seconds, and the ball had immediately freed, the blue alliance could fairly feel frustrated that they now had to remove that dead ball and regain their assists on the new ball. Dead ball's aren't actually "Get out of Jail Free" cards... they come at a cost.
The decision to re-play QF1-2 immediately rather than waiting for the originally intended QF1-3 slot? An unfortunate decision, but one that if you're simply following the letter of the rules sounds like the right decision. I believe every replay I've seen has been played in a subsequent slot. The timeout shouldn't have been allowed (but they should've given you the timeout coupon back) because it needs to be called within 2 minutes of when the green lights go up on the goals after the prior match. It sounds like this discussion carried on for 5-20 minutes, not 2.
The decision to call no tech foul for inside-the-perimter-zone damage? Very reasonable, given that a ref didn't see a case where the red alliance instigated the damaging contact. Perhaps the refs should've watched more closely, but it sounds like the damage may not have been red-alliance-initiated.
Really though, that a match was replayed over 8 seconds lost at the pedestal is a very significant thing. We can all agree here that 8 seconds are often lost at the pedestal... it could happen for a host of reasons and I'm guessing most matches unfortunately have at least one instance of an 8-second pedestal-delay. Even more baffling is the concept that a 60-point cycle was missed in those 8 seconds. There's a thread on CD about the perfect cycle. If one had been accomplished by any alliance in only 8 seconds (including inbound time), then we'd all be sitting here congratulating the successful alliance.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying a 60-point cycle in 8 seconds is impossible... I'm sure if you got the right three robots together and they practiced it a dozen times, you could get a couple times from pedestal-to-goal of 8 seconds. This would probably involve an inbounding bot that could truss from where they inbound, a catcher that could spit the ball out towards the goals, and a scorer that needed only to suck the ball in and shoot (no adjusting involved).
Thanks for "keeping it GP" - I wish you the best of luck in your upcoming events! Glad to see you all get another shot!
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Student: 2006-2010 (#1519)
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