he would have his feet on the pedals, which move, independently. Was he supposed to balance his foothold purchase to prevent other than neutral Rudder deflection?? Probably, but he couldn't,
What you say sounds plausible, but I don't buy it. The ruddering was violent and appeared to be following roll and in opposition to same, The pullback was more or less linearly increasing. I think he was doing a good job handling the controls the way he had been taught, and there wasn't any particular exess foot reaction from the column pull.
My knowledge of modern plane characteristics is small, but I know several of the WW II era twin prop planes would fall off on the left wing when going into a stall, some quite violently.