Fortunate ruling for the Cuse.
I was talking to a BCS Athletic Director, who used to work for a Big East school, about this very issue.
He said that the issue was pretty complicated, because the NCAA was trending towards reviewing errors that directly impact the score. He brought up a recent example that I was unaware of: just two weeks ago, the PAC-12 changed the score of a USC/Utah game because of an obvious error that directly impacted the score.
http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/...anges-usc-trojans-utah-utes-final-score-23-14
Pretty strange ruling, but the AD explained that this was the direction in which the NCAA wanted to move regarding bad calls that directly impact the score.
Also, we discussed how the bad PAT call was somewhat different than more subjective calls, like a pass interference. The bad PAT call is very much analogous to a situation where the scorer simply gives a team 7 points when, infact, the team had merely punted. In such a situation, it is hard to know what to do. Perhaps the win ought to simply be vacated, perhaps the game ought to be rescheduled like in baseball. It is hard to know what to do, when the officials simply give a team points that they did not earn.
If Cuse fans were in Toledo's shoes, I am not sure we would all agree that the win is totally legitimate, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a "stupid . . . idiot. . . that doesn't understand football." If an official scorer simply gave Toledo points that they did not earn with 2:00 left in the 4th quarter, I don't think many of us would regard a Toledo victory as legitimate.
Anyways, what many posters do not seem to understand, is that a bad PAT call is different than a missed pass interference call in this very specific respect: at the end of regulation, we can definitely say that Toledo scored more points than Syracuse. That is why NCAA and conference officials are taking a close look at this one. Missed holding calls do not have the same degree of direct impact on the score. When a holding call is missed, it does not create a discrepancy between the score and the actual number of points scored in a game; but when a team is simply given credit for points they did not score, it does directly create a discrepancy between the score and the actual number of points scored.
This point I am making is simply a normative observation: Toledo scored more actual points during regulation. This observation has
absolutely nothing to do with pretending that the game "would have played out" exactly the same way that it did, had the PAT been ruled correctly. It is not necessary to imagine "what would have happened" in order to make the very simply analysis that, at the end of regulation, Syracuse had scored fewer points. That is why this snafu is somewhat unique. The posters arguing that the game would have turned out differently, are arguing a straw-man.
Also, with the recent USC/BYU ruling, a vacated win was definitely a possibility. I hear the NCAA will be conducting an inquiry panel on how to handle SU/Toledo & USC/BYU issues going forward, so this game will probably come up again.
Anywho, just my opinion, but some folks on this board might want to learn how to "take it as well as they give it." Too many well connected posters get banned, or have their IPs redirected or other petty nonsense, just because they respond intellectually to moderators who are calling them idiots, morons, etc.