2001 Michigan Vs. Michigan State Football Game - Fallout

Fallout

Years after the game, Big Ten officials told The Detroit News that, upon further review, the clock operator acted appropriately. Three years following the game, Dave Parry, the conference's coordinator of football officials, said, "that play, as much as we've put that under a high-powered microscope, was correct. We could not prove that timer wrong."

To prevent the controversy caused by this game and others, the Big Ten changed its timekeeping policy for the 2002 season, having previously studied changing the policy prior to the Michigan State-Michigan game. Previously, the home team appointed an individual of their choosing to keep the official time in the pressbox. Now, time is kept on the field by a neutral official appointed by the Big Ten.

In addition to agreeing to change its policy on timekeeping, the Big Ten began a study on the feasibility of an instant replay system in 2003. In 2004, the Big Ten was the first conference to begin a trial replay system for all games played in conference stadiums. In 2005, most NCAA Division I-A teams had the option of using instant replay for their games after the NCAA approved the Big Ten's proposal to allow individual conferences to experiment with their own replay systems. Finally, in 2006, instant replay became standard across all NCAA Division I-A conferences.

Still, to this day, the game has been dubbed a classic by college football fans due to the 1 tie, 7 lead changes, and ending controversy. ESPN Classic and the BigTen Network have both featured the game as part of their classic college football series.