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Old Tue Jan 26, 2016, 12:28pm
Robert Goodman Robert Goodman is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2007
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich View Post
Those are the gratuitous differences I am talking about.

For example, requiring a holder to lift a knee before pitching the ball. Every year I hear of a team doing that and it being called in a HS game and I always wonder -- exactly why should that be different than what everyone sees on TV?
I believe, though I'm not sure, that difference, like the one below, was a result of NCAA's change, Fed's inertia. Some years after adopting (early 1930s, before Fed had their own football rules) the provision that a knee down made the ball dead except when holding for a place kick, NCAA added language allowing the ballcarrier in such a position to "arise". Much later, NCAA looked at play situations & decided that wording was unnecessarily restrictive; situations of passing the ball while kneeling just hadn't occurred to them when they originally adopted the provision. They might not have been pushed into reconsidering until after some officials complained about having to make the call of whether the holder got his knee off the ground in time to pass.
Quote:
Why can I tackle a QB by the face mask in a HS game and benefit from it?
That last difference resulted from a change by NCAA, Fed keeping the old rule. However, they could also say that with the number of people officiating under Fed rules, the need to keep administration of penalties simple is greater than it is for NCAA or NFL.