It was McCarver and I took it with a large grain of salt because of that. My biggest issue in the citing of that rule is that you don't really know if the ball was in fair territory or not. It may have still been in the batter's box when the bat hit it again. Balls are pretty much always hit in fair territory. I don't see any way in which this one wouldn't have been.
I still can't figure out why this is such a big deal to people. You don't see why a week's worth of dedicated prime time national media coverage on a campus is a big deal to fans of that college? No.