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In Usenet some years ago the consensus was that in rugby the ruling is as Texas Aggie would have it, relating it to the motion of the passing player rather than the absolute direction over the ground. However, the rules of all the major American football codes clearly go otherwise; they differ as to specifics, but all relate to absolute direction as referred to the field.
It's understandable that they'd want it otherwise in rugby if for no other reason that there's only the referee who can call a forward pass. If you're not close to the yard line of the passer in Fed, or able to identify the points of origin and then touching of the pass in NCAA, it'd be a lot easier for you to see whether the passer's putting the ball "behind him" than the absolute direction of the pass. However, even in rugby my understanding is that they'll call it a forward pass if the passer collides with an opponent immediately after releasing the ball, causing the ball to be more easily seen to be traveling ahead of the passer, in one of those momentum cases.
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