ESPN: what would happen if The Play happened today?

From ESPN, including a cool video...

Imagine if The Play occurred in this Saturday's Cal-Stanford game, rather than 25 years ago.

In this age of relentless sports coverage, ubiquitous bloggers and inexhaustible opinion, The Play would cause so much debate, controversy and outrage that the World Wide Web might actually fill up. ESPN would have to add yet another channel, and even those tree-sitting protestors at Cal would climb down to call into radio talk shows.

"Moonbeam in Berkeley -- you're on with Frank the Tank and the Coach."

"Hey, yeah, I just wanted to say that, apart from its fascist plan to destroy a vital ecological habitat of moderate-growth trees in order to build a $125 million athletic facility for a sport that promotes violence, demeans women and leaves a destructive carbon footprint, Cal football rules! And Stanford should just shut the @#&% up! I had a clear view of The Play from the top of my tree, and Dwight Garner's knee was soooo not down!

[snip]

So, 25 years later, does it really matter whether Garner's knee was down or whether Ford's lateral was indeed backward? No. What matters is that a group of trained, dedicated referees followed The Play that day as best they could, and they ruled on it as fairly and honestly as possible. And, aside from a few bitter Stanford fans, we're all the better for it not being reversed -- so that we have the memory of that incredible play, the greatest play in college football history. (And frankly, those Stanford fans probably shouldn't care either, because most of them made a killing during the tech boom and currently are retired and dining on Komodo dragon filets on their private islands in the South Pacific). (emphasis mine)