Joshua Wood had already seen a game slip away with the clock nearly gone. In his Idaho debut last season, Washington State took a 13-10 win after kicking a field goal with three seconds left. Wood’s first season in Moscow then took another turn when a knee injury forced him to miss two games. He returned in 2026 as Idaho’s starting quarterback, but the Vandals opened the season 0-4.

By Friday night, Wood had watched Montana State build a 34-20 lead in the fourth quarter. He had already connected with Ryan Jezioro for a 75-yard touchdown earlier in the game, but the Bobcats were still in control with less than 14 minutes to play. Idaho chipped away, and after Montana State missed a 52-yard field goal with 3:22 left, Wood got the ball back with 49 seconds on the clock and no timeouts. Five plays later, Wood found Jezioro again. The receiver had room in the end zone for a 25-yard touchdown that cut Montana State’s lead to one, and Woodfo kept the ball himself on the two-point conversion to finish the comeback. Except the touchdown pass that changed the game may never have had a chance to happen.

Taking to social media right after the final whistle, veteran rules analyst and former NFL referee Terry McAulay made it clear that the crew botched the end-of-game procedure. “Not going to comment on the timeout aspect, but it seems the officials reset the clock to 01,” McAulay noted on X.

“They are not supposed to do so. Replay rules only allow the clock to be reset when the clock starts on the ready for play, and there are 3 or more seconds remaining and the offense has no timeouts. The reason is that the rule makers believe it is impossible for them to snap the ball from :02 or :01 before the clock hits :00 if the ready for play is correctly given and the clock starts accordingly. Onfield officials are instructed not to reset here and let it go to replay. Replay would have allowed the game to end at that point.”

The detail that matters here is that West-Baranco’s catch was ruled a first down. The official play-by-play credits him with a 23-yard gain to the Montana State 25, not 25 yards, and lists it as a first down. Because the play came inside the final two minutes, the clock stopped when the first down was gained. The question was what should happen next, and, more importantly, what officials were allowed to do once the clock showed 0:00.

That is the distinction McAulay is making. He is not arguing that Idaho could never run a play with one second left. NCAA timing rules recognize that one or two seconds can be enough for one play when the clock is legitimately running. His objection is to restoring that second after the clock had already reached zero.

The NCAA’s replay casebook sets a specific threshold for this situation. If time expires and the clock would restart on the referee’s signal after a review, there must have been at least three seconds remaining when the ball should have been declared dead for replay to restore the time. With one or two seconds, the period is over unless the offense has a timeout. Idaho had none.

That three-second rule is easy to misunderstand. It does not mean a team cannot snap the ball with one second left. It means officials cannot use the replay procedure to create that one second after the clock has expired when the next clock start would come on the referee’s signal and the offense has no timeout. The rule treats a legitimate :01 differently from a :01 restored after :00.

McAulay’s argument, then, is about procedure rather than the catch itself. If the officials believed the clock should have shown one second when West-Baranco was declared down, the timing question was supposed to go through the replay process. In his view, that process would not have allowed the :01 to be restored, meaning the game should have ended there.

There was another layer to the ending. After the officials put one second on the clock, Montana State head coach Brent Vigen called timeout. The official play-by-play records the timeout with one second remaining at the Montana State 25. That stopped the clock and gave both teams a chance to set up for the final snap.

Idaho used that opportunity immediately. Wood took the snap and lofted the ball toward Jezioro, who made the 25-yard touchdown catch with the clock at 0:00. It was Jezioro’s second touchdown of the night; his first had been a 75-yard score earlier in the game. He finished with 147 receiving yards, while Wood threw for 315 yards and added 41 rushing yards.

The touchdown itself did not complete the upset. Idaho still trailed 34-33 and needed two points to win. Rather than kick the extra point and send the game to overtime, coach Thomas Ford Jr. kept his offense on the field. He called the decision a “no-brainer,” and Wood kept the ball on the two-point try, powering into the end zone to make it 35-34.

That makes the ending more complicated than a single officiating decision. Idaho still had to drive 55 yards in 49 seconds, Wood still had to find Jezioro, and the Vandals still had to convert the two-point play. But McAulay’s criticism centers on the step before all of that: whether Idaho should have been given the final snap in the first place.

How did Montana State react to this loss?

For the Bobcats, the frustration was not limited to losing a 14-point fourth-quarter lead. Montana State had the No. 1 ranking, a 19-game winning streak and a 34-20 advantage with 13:29 remaining. Idaho then held the defending FCS champions scoreless for the rest of regulation.

Vigen said afterward that he was not given an explanation for the additional second. “They said they looked at it… I hope there is a second left on the clock,” he said.

His timeout also became a target of criticism because it came immediately after the clock was restored. Warren Sharp called it “one of the WORST coaching decisions you will ever see,” while Barstool Sports’ Jack Mac questioned why Montana State would stop the clock and give Idaho another organized opportunity. Those reactions address a separate issue from McAulay’s rules argument: even if the one second was available, Montana State still had to decide what to do with it.

The official game account from Idaho described the moment differently from the criticism. It noted that Montana State called timeout with one second left before the teams could get set, giving Idaho a final play. Wood then found a diving Jezioro, and the Kibbie Dome erupted as the Vandals completed the first win in program history over a No. 1-ranked team.

The result also ended Montana State’s 19-game winning streak and handed Idaho its first victory of the season. The Vandals had entered 0-4; Montana State entered 5-0 as the defending FCS champion.

That is what makes McAulay’s interpretation so consequential. The clock decision did not score the touchdown, and it did not complete the two-point conversion. But if his reading of the replay procedure is correct, the officials’ handling of that final second gave Idaho access to the very play that produced the winning touchdown.