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Originally Posted by ajmc
That rule, although rare in application, has been on the books since leather helmets,
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Actually since waaay before
any helmets.
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changing a rule solely because some coaches don't understand it, is a journey that would produce an entirely new game.
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NCAA managed to abolish it in 1950 -- but only by abolishing the fair catch entirely, as Canadian football recently had. They restored the fair catch in 1951, minus the kick option.
The reason a tee is allowed for this type of kick in Fed is that Fed had undertaken a process of harmonizing the rules for all forms of free kicks. They diverged a little since then, however, but not on this detail. They also diverged in allowing a punt to be used on the free kicks after a safety and a fair catch; at the apogee of the harmoniz'n process, only a place or drop kick could be used for any free kick, and the only difference between them was that a kickoff was not allowed to score a field goal. (Yes, a free kick from a safety could score a goal.)
Speaking of harmoniz'n, it was only a few years ago that the NFL classified the kickoff as a form of free kick; previously they'd followed the old rule of treating a kickoff separately, even though the rules were mostly redundant. It was the NCAA in the 1930s that consolidated these as part of a process of reducing the number of "rules" in the book. NFL already had its own rules, Fed didn't yet.
Until Canadian football abolished its fair catch, the player who made the free kick had to be the same one who'd made the fair catch, as in rugby. I don't remember whether the free kick was mandatory or they could choose to scrimmage.