College Question~Fumble

[Chuck Lewis]

Greetings from Montana...
I know that many of you do High School ball and there are probably many differences between High School and College as there are in basketball.... But I have a football question...
Montana as you may know does not have a NFL program... Soooo our Universities become our football addiction outlet... Last night our University of Montana played a North Carolina team for the a trip to our conference D1 finals in Tennessee...
The play... (Using a basketball format) A1 passes to receiver A2 and we have a legal reception... A split second later, with A2 holding the ball, B1 makes the hit and A2 coughs up the ball which is recovered by B2... The collision was pretty spectacular as many of them are these days and happen so quickly that I don't think that the receiver even thought about heading down field... Time was called almost immediately after the lost and recovery of the ball to deal with the injured receiver A2....
Question... On the hit, when the receiver A2 lost the ball, isn't this a fumble? Linda, my wife, and I thought that it would have been, but no one even mentioned it, so we were obviously in error... Can you explain why? Thanks!
Semper Fi
Chuck