[chymechowder]

Question about NCAA rules:

Does the ball need to break the plane of the goal line (extended) for a forward pass to be a TD?

Say a receiver catches a pass. His feet are touching the ground in the endzone but his body is outstretched back towards the line of scrimmage. (He was "coming back" to his QB.) Receiver then falls, either into the field of play or across a sideline. Either way, the most forward the ball itself gets is the 2 yard line.

8-2-1-b says it's a TD when "a player catches a forward pass in the opponent's end zone."

Main question: what needs to be in the end zone? The player or the pass?

4-2-4-c (Out of Bounds at Forward Point) partially addresses the issue:

"A receiver who is in the opponent's end zone and contacting the ground is credited with a completion if he reaches over the sideline or end line and catches a a legal pass."

But it doesn't mention what, if anything, happens when a receiver reaches (back) over the goal line.

One could infer that since the entry omitted goal line, then reaching across the goal line can't give the offense a forward point in the end zone.

Personally, I've thought the ball needs to be (or have been) beyond goal line. But I hear divided opinions. And indeed, it's very easy to read 8-2-1-b simply as saying: if a player's in the endzone when he catches a forward pass, it's a TD, regardless of how far the ball made it or where it was when it became dead.