Interesting Play from last night.
 

College Game

1st and 10 on the A30, :36 left in the game. QB A 10 rolls right and attempts to throw a screen pass to A34. The ball goes over A34's head and hits A51 in the back at the A34, rebounds back where A66 dives and catches the ball at the A33.

What do you have?

No one, huh?

We had illegal man downfield, and also illegal touching (the 5 yards previous spot illegal touching, no loss of down).

Anything else? Is there a chance for OPI here? Wondering out loud.

Under NF the ball hitting A51 in the back is ignored, and then illegal touching for ineligible A66 purposefully touching the ball. Had the ball bounced off a B player then all A players become eligible. No OPI here in NF.

I would not get technical on the ineligible downfield if the pass was attempted for the screen behind the LOS and just floated over his head. That is not the spirit of that rule. The illegal touching is still valid though.

My thoughts as well.

Agree. That's a CFO philosophy and I think it filters down to all levels.

Plus, A51 is only ineligibly downfield if he's more than three yards downfield when the pass is thrown... if he was only 4 yards downfield when it hit him in the back, it's entirely possible that he was legal when the pass was thrown.

True in NCAA but in NFHS the expanded neutral zone is only two yards but I usually give three.