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Originally Posted by daggo66
Robert, you are missing one very important part of the eligibility picture with the A-11. It's not as cut and dried as the old days before numbering requirements. The biggest issue in my mind is that with the exception if a player establishes his position on the line as an ineligible receiver, he remains an ineligible receiver throughout the down. Let's say that A line up with 8 men on the LOS with 2 wide outs on the right. The inside receiver is ineligible. He realizes he was supposed to be off the line, so he now shifts to the backfield. In a normal formation he would be eligible, however since this is a scrimmage kick formation he is now an ineligible receiver regardless of where he lines up.
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Oh, I know the exception makes it harder than it was back then because you have to keep in mind an initial position and a final position for each of several players. But at least with A-11 you're on notice that that's the basis of the offense, rather than 40+ yrs. ago when a tackle eligible might occur any time as a rare surprise and you didn't notice whether the erstwhile end on that side had lined up sufficiently backward or whatever.
Fed has had a tendency over the years to outlaw plays that had been occurring only rarely, because the officials might not be looking at the right things. With A-11 we have a situation where someone realized that a loophole that was available occasionally, and exploited probably only rarely, could be made available & exploited continuously.
Around 30 years ago (give or take a lot) someone discovered a loophole NCAA had left on altering a rule about a decade earlier. There was no provision to discourage batting forward someone's backward pass unless it went out of bounds. So an ostensible place kick holder tossed the ball into the air and the ostensible kicker made a volleyball serve out of it, followed by a scramble for the ball downfield. I think others were too ashamed to exploit that one, and the loophole was closed for the next season, which was easy because it was just a matter of making a conforming chage they'd forgotten when the original change was made. I don't think Fed's scrimmage kick numbering exception will be as easily disposed of.
Robert