CINCINNATI — Chances are, hopefully, you are too young to remember Roone Arledge, but without him you well might not have watched last night’s football game in Cincinnati between West Virginia University and Bearcats.

If Abner Doubleday invented baseball, if Thomas Edison gave us the electric light bulb, if Alexander Graham Bell gave us the telephone, Roone Arledge was every bit as much the father of modern sports television.

ABC’s Wide World of Sports was his baby, right down to “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” and West Virginians know something about the agony of defeat today.

See, along with Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football and, yes, the irritating nasal pompousness of Howard Cosell, Roone Arledge was behind the invention of instant replay, although it is safe to infer that Arledge saw it as an aid to the viewers in understanding what was going on during a game, not as a way to decide the outcome of football games.

In an ironic twist, capping off a week in which baseball commissioner Bud Selig turned down an expansion of the use of replay in his sport after a postseason of embarrassing blunders by umpires that replay could have repaired, the use of replay played a huge role in the outcome of this game.

And they may not have gotten the play right, anyway.

Let us return to the moment of truth, late in the first half with West Virginia leading No. 5 Cincinnati, a team that had won its first nine game and truthfully expected, inside a ring of red in stately old Nippert Stadium, to win its 10th.

The Mountaineers, however, had different ideas as the Bearcats time after time made critical mistakes. It got so bad that they even lost a fumble, something they hadn’t done at any time during the first nine games, the only team in college football to be so blessed.

There were other mistakes, a dropped touchdown pass, a bad snap on a sure field goal that turned it into a miss, a chop block penalty that killed a drive.

But the worst was yet to come.

West Virginia had taken the lead on a rather nifty play taken out of the Don Nehlen playbook, a straight handoff out of a three-fullback set on third-and-two to power running back Ryan Clarke, bursting through a hole before safety Dominque Battle could get a hand on him and racing 37 yards to the go-ahead touchdown.

Cincinnati came roaring right back down the field, clipping off big chunks of yardage behind quarterback Zach Collaros until the football sat at the WVU 3, first down for the high-scoring Bearcats.

Considering Cincinnati averages 40 points a game, rest assured the kickoff return team was gathering on the sideline plotting strategy as Collaros gave the ball inside to Isaiah Pead, who tried to go over the top but was met with a wall of resistance.

It being first down, there seemed to be no need to struggle to get in, least of all by taking a chance to reach out and get the ball over the goal line, but Pead didn’t want to try it again. As he stretched out, safety Robert Sands worked the ball from his grasp and it fell to the ground.

The pile was massive, and at the bottom of it was the most massive man of all, Chris Neild, with the football in his possession.

The officials signaled West Virginia had the ball. The WVU sideline leaped in the air as one; the Cincinnati sideline seemed to have the air sucked from it.

The West Virginia offense came on the field, as did the Cincinnati defense when whistles began to blow.

The officials were going to review the play.

Now why in the name of Roone Arledge football officials are the only people in the wide world of sports not allowed to make mistake? A quarterback can throw an interception, a pitcher can hang a curve, a basketball player can miss a dunk and there are no do-overs.

If, however, you wear a striped shirt your call on the field carries an asterisk. It is completely meaningless.

Now, to overturn an official’s call on the field you need conclusive evidence that the call was wrong.

I’ve seen that replay over and over and, to be honest, the only thing I know for sure is that he fumbled. Did Pead lose control before the ball broke the plane – which is arguable in and of itself? Not sure.

“I got it out,” Sand would say after the game. “I’m not sure if he crossed the line, but the ball definitely was out. The call did not go our way. It is what it is.”

What it is is a disgrace is that officials overturned the call on the scantiest of evidence, if any at all, and rest assured WVU coach Bill Stewart would like to say so, too, but he’s too much of a gentleman to plead his case in public.

“I’ll save that for the Big East,” Stewart said. “They’re professional men. They called it the way they saw it, I guess.”

The way they saw it was as a phantom touchdown, overturning the play on the field, overturning the goal line stand, overturning the fumble and turning West Virginia’s football season into a nightmare with two games left.

In West Virginia today, Roone Arledge will be known as “Ruin” Arledge, for his invention ruined the Mountaineers last hope at a Big East championship and a BCS bid.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.