[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JRutledge

I do not think it is that petty.

I didn't say it was petty, just differences of opinion.

I think football at the high school level has different concerns and NCAA often does not address them

Indeed, and that's the reason Fed has usually given for their differences, and usually they're right.

or the main thing, you have college coaches that try to always find holes they can exploit. Those same exploitation do not take place in NF because there are more coaches and many coaches are not only coaches by profession.

Think about this: Where is a loophole more likely to be found & exploited: among full-time pros, or among a far greater number who include some part-timers & volunteers? Fed has so many more games played by their rules (not even limited to their member ass'ns), the exploitation's usually going to come first there, rather than in the smaller world of NCAA rules users.

I do not think the NF goes out of their way, they just do not see the need to change something that is simple that is mostly taking place at the college level.

Then how do you explain their adopting a provision which, although it was intended to have the same effect as a recently-adopted NCAA one regarding approach by the kicking team to their free kick line, was worded differently in a way that made it hard to administer if officials were actually to take it literally (which I'm sure they didn't)? Why didn't they just adopt NCAA's language? They used to cooperate via a liaison committee with NCAA, ideas going back & forth, sometimes adopting the same change at the same time if they both found it appropriate.

I'll give you an example of a difference that existed for about 60 yrs. as a result of Fed's change: # of forward passes allowed per down. When the Football Rules Committee (pre-dating NCAA) legalized the forward pass in 1906, they limited forward passes to one per down. All the major codes kept it that way, except Fed. Shortly after Fed started writing their own rules for football, they took several years to deliberate things; you can see their sec'y's notes on this in their archives from that time. Taking nothing for granted, they looked over the whole code, not only for what different needs pre-collegians might have, but what could be improved generally. They said, why should forward passes be limited to once/down? So they abolished that requirement, reinstating it only recently. I don't know why they reinstated it. I also don't know why the other codes kept it. I think it makes the game marginally better to allow more than one forward pass per down, and it also makes administration easier when you don't have to see whether a swing pass preceding a forward pass went forward.