True. A backward pass to the sideline would've accomplished the same result, and then IG wouldn't've even been considered.

OL let DL by, and two of them were right on the QB. Had to throw or risk being sacked. A sack by definition is a loss of yards.

Still in pocket, no receiver in area. Had he rolled out about 5 feet he would have been fine.

I'd love to know if one of the officials suggested there isn't an untimed down, and that the game is therefore over, yet was "over-ruled" by a majority or convincing comrade.

At least they all know the rule now. As does the whole country. :)

But look at 7-3-2. The relevant provisions are all "The passer to conserve time..." and "The passer to conserve yardage..." What's material to this case is not whether a loss of yardage would've occurred, but what the passer's motiv'n was. The ball was not thrown to conserve either time or field position, but to consume time. So I don't see intentional grounding.

Suppose it were an opposite kind of situation. Time for the half expires during the down before A1 throws an intentionally incomplete forward pass under conditions where it looks like team A would've liked another down. It would not in fact have conserved time, but the passer's purpose was to conserve time, so it's intentional grounding. I doubt anyone would care about the enforcement, because the period ends anyway, but that's what's meant by those "The passer to..." phrases: to outlaw certain passes on the basis of the passer's purpose, not the result.

Those conditions are necessary but not sufficient to call intentional grounding. It still has to be done to conserve time or the spot, and this was for neither.

Supposed to read minds or ask the QB? The throw conserved yards. That's all I, as a WH, care about. Grounding.

On field ACC crew and Big 12 replay crew suspended 2 games

His motivation was to avoid being sacked. That he threw it high, far, and to an area with no receiver is an additional aspect to the play that doesn't remove the fact that two defenders would have easily tackled him without the throw.

Avoiding the sack conserves yardage (item h): the incomplete pass means that B would take over further from A's EZ than if he was sacked.

MAC, not ACC

That's what intentional grounding's always been about.
It shouldn't be all you care about, because there are plenty of incomplete passes that conserve yards but that you'd never call intentional grounding because they weren't intended to conserve yards. For instance, the passer & receiver get crossed up as to the route, so the ball winds up going nowhere near a receiver. You'd call intentional grounding only if it looked like the passer's purpose in throwing it was to avoid a loss or to stop the clock. That was manifestly not the case here. The player throwing the pass cared nothing about where the ball would be spotted for the next down, and did not care to leave any time on the period clock.

But throwing the ball to avoid being tackled is immaterial unless it's to (the word used in the book) conserve time or get a more favorable spot. The word "to" requires purpose. The player did not care where the next spot would be. He didn't want to leave time on the game clock, either. So the conditions for IG don't apply.

This is a tactic which is not against the rules: throwing the ball high (in any direction), not trying for a completed pass, to consume time.

Try this: A1 on 4th & 20 runs 10 yards past his LOS, then throws the ball forward, high, and far out of bounds to use up an extra 2 seconds to end either half. It's still an illegal forward pass. Still loss of down. Does the player care where the next spot is going to be? No. So why would you penalize for IG if he were behind the LOS and threw a forward pass for the same purpose? He still doesn't care what the next spot was going to be.

How about if he throws it nearly directly sideways? Are you going to take pains to figure out whether it was a forward or backward pass, so you can see whether you could call IG?

This is not a situation for which the IG provisions were adopted.

Robert, you're trying to float a LEAD canoe. The IG call by the crew was a technically correct call, unfortunately a really GLARING mistake was made on the enforcement.

Occasional mistakes are something each and everyone of has made, somewhat repeatedly, but thankfully not as highlighted as this one. The crew was wrong, is accountable, will suffer some consequences and hopefully get past the embarrassment and second guessing before their next on field assignment, and God willing, "the beat will go on".

This is what happened to me and why my initial post sided with how it was handled on the field. I assumed that guys at that level had to be right. As I posted in another thread, my gut reaction was that it wasn't right and I said as much to my son. He questioned me because he knows I usually reserve those kind of statements until I know with certainty that a mistake was made. By the time I posted the OP in this thread, I had convinced myself I was wrong and that I must be missing something in the NCAA rules.