Methinks we can....
 

Unsticky the 2015 rule changes.

I'm going to leave them for another 5 months now. :)

OK done. 2016 changes involving things nobody was asking for along with adding additional obscurities to the rules are less than a month away!

Isn't that always the case? :p

Absolutely which is why I can say so with confidence. :)

Reading the thread on RefStripes where a member of the rules committee posts leaves me depressed. I'd bet nothing of substance will be changed...again, although there are some things mentioned there that would make a lot of sense, such as allowing a spike from a shotgun like every other level of football.

The mindset of "We're not going to do it that way just because NCAA does" likely won't change in our generation.

Does that mindset mean, "Because NCAA does it 1 way, we're going to do it another"? Or does it mean, "The mere fact that NCAA does it 1 way isn't enough reason for us to do it that way"? I sure hope it's #2, not #1.

For some it is probably a little bit of both.

Peace

Let me answer your question with a question:

Why is FED baseball the only code to designate runners' position on base at the start of a play differently from everyone else in the baseball-playing world?

All Sports played under NFHS rules govern (Interscholastic) games played by adolescents between the ages 8/9 and 18/19, whereas NCAA rules (mostly) apply to young adults between ages 18/19 and through their 20s. Professional sports are played by grown men & women.

There are LOTS OF EXAMPLES where things that may work really well at one level just don't fit all that well at other levels, despite a lot of effort trying.

Different skill sets, different abilities, different maturity levels, different objectives sometimes require different rules considerations.

And there are a lot of gratuitous differences that do not need to exist.

I'll acknowledge your side if you acknowledge mine.

Maybe it would just work, if the notions, that "Change" in either direction (to or from) should be based on whether there is an actual and definable need, or benefit, in doing so.

I just saw why we have different rules at different levels. In the AFC Title game there was a punt with a kicking team player going out of bounds and staying out of bounds while running down the line. That is something a pro player will likely do, not a high school kid. The penalty was for USC, not Illegal Participation or some other kind of violation.

Peace

The funny thing is that just a few decades ago there was a NCAA-Fed liaison committee for football rules. They wanted things discussed together so they could cooperate, pick up tips, whatever.

OTOH, a couple decades before that, there was a Fed-instigated Alliance that wrote football rules for Fed, NAIA, & NJCAA.

So sometimes it's been, let's work together while honoring our unique needs, while other times it's just been, we're better at this than you are.