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This much we know:

"The kick was good," said Butch Davis, North Carolina's football coach. "Make no mistake about it. He made the kick."

Originally, though, a mistake was made on Virginia kicker Chris Gould's 48-yard field-goal attempt Saturday in the third quarter of the Cavaliers' 22-20 victory over UNC. The officials on the field signaled that the kick was no good. After a challenge by UVa and an instant-replay review, that ruling was changed, and Virginia was given its rightful three points.

Here is where things become decidedly less clear. How exactly did the officials miss the call?

Because Gould's kick was so close to the crossbar, the official on that side of the goal post, Virgil Valdez, ducked to avoid getting hit by the ball and apparently missed its flight over the crossbar. There was then a communications breakdown with the other official on the opposite side of the goal post, resulting in an incorrect call.

"This will be reviewed and taken into consideration in our internal grading system," Doug Rhoads, the ACC coordinator of football officiating, said by phone Monday. "I will take appropriate evaluation action."

But was the original call, even though it was incorrect, actually reviewable?

Technically, yes, Rhoads said. It falls under Section 3 of Rule 12 of the NCAA rule book, which deals with instant replay. It is considered a scoring play that falls under the umbrellas of "reviewable plays governed by a side line, goal line or an end line."

How?

"The crossbar of the upright is, in fact, an extension of the end line," Rhoads said. "As such, it is covered because it is a scoring play and it is an extension of that line."

There was one more twist, though. How did Virginia's coaches get the information they needed to risk losing a timeout over the challenge?

Coach Al Groh said people on the Virginia sideline told him the kick was good and that the call should be challenged. But television sideline reporter Scott Pryzwansky said this during the broadcast:

"It was actually Virginia athletics staff (who) called down to the field and said, '(On) our angle, it looked like this thing went through.' The word got to coach Groh and that's how this all started, from the Virginia athletic crew and their videotaping of the game."

If that's true, then there might be a problem because teams aren't allowed to use television or videotape during a game for coaching purposes. But Rhoads said the ACC didn't have any information about a call coming from the press box.

"The information that we have is that it was someone on the sideline who relayed the information to coach Groh," he said.

Even if that information had come from someone in the press box with access to a video monitor, there still might be a loophole, Rhoads said. Bear in mind that Pryzwansky said "athletics staff," not coaches.

"There is no prohibition to a third party, whether it's the video coordinator, the athletics director, the SID, or just the fan who's cooking hot dogs from phoning that in," Rhoads said. "The language of that rule doesn't address any third party."

What is known is that the kick was good, and replay corrected what had been a missed call.

"Three years ago," Rhoads said, "that would have been a 20-19 game the other way."

Contact Jim Young at 373-7016 or jyoung@news-record.com