1. ACC has been getting complaints all season from various coaches about Emma’s leap (that’s what it is, not a crow hop).

2. ACC knows that Craig Hyde is a veteran ump who was actually head of the NCAA Ump Association (whatever that is) for several years but is currently working games again, often in the state of Florida.

3. ACC “conveniently” schedules Hyde to work the VT-FSU series and instructs him to be on the lookout for Emma’s leap and call it every time he thinks he sees it.

4. Pete reaches out to the ACC today (or vice versa, if he protested yesterday’s game) to get some clarity on the issue, and the ACC basically tells him of the plot involving Hyde and it starts to trickle out to the general public.

It’s also entirely possible that FSU’s head coach contacted the ACC well ahead of this series and asked that the umpiring crew assigned to the series to be on the lookout for this. Maybe they even sent some tape from Emma’s other games to the league office. You better believe that if Lonni Alameda calls the ACC about something, they listen. She far and away has more clout that any other coach in the league.

If this is true, it probably isn’t great for VT. It means that the ACC decided to bring this to the fore. They will probably send out a memo to all officials who work ACC games reminding them of the rule and asking them to vigorously enforce it (they probably wouldn’t mention VT or Emma by name, but the timing/reference would be obvious). I figured the NCAA would probably do something like this prior to the WCWS anyway since it is a hot button issue across the sport. If true, Emma will have to change or we are going to be back to a one trick pony (ace) in Keely.