Legal Pass or Not

[smileyh]

Originally Posted by mrerrl

Team A sends man in motion. The QB hands the ball in front to the man in motion. Runner stops and throws a halfback pass to the receiver after getting the ball.

Legal. A handoff is not a pass. I assume a halfback pass is some form of forward pass.

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[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by smileyh

Legal. A handoff is not a pass. I assume a halfback pass is some form of forward pass.

It's legal in major codes, but some of them (NFL, CFL, Football Canada) do define handing the ball as a pass. Those that do just make an exception so as not to count a forward handoff against the number of legal forward passes in a down.

[Texas Aggie]

NCAA: you can hand the ball off in any direction behind the line any number of times, and this does not remove the ability to throw a legal forward pass. There are some minor restrictions against handing off to interior linemen, but we won't go over that now. Teams now often "flip" the ball forward to a player coming in front of the QB and that IS a forward pass. I've called 2 illegal forward pass fouls this year in varsity games where that happened. Both coaches said, "they're supposed to hand the ball off; that's legal, right??"

Yes, sir.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

Teams now often "flip" the ball forward to a player coming in front of the QB and that IS a forward pass.

It may or may not be. The relative positions of the players as one crosses in front of the other is irrelevant to that determination. You have to see the ball at the time of its release and then again at the time it's next touched. And because NCAA defines a backward pass as one that's not forward, they built in a presumption (which would operate in cases where those facts are not known) that a pass is backward.

[CT1]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

It may or may not be. The relative positions of the players as one crosses in front of the other is irrelevant to that determination. You have to see the ball at the time of its release and then again at the time it's next touched. And because NCAA defines a backward pass as one that's not forward, they built in a presumption (which would operate in cases where those facts are not known) that a pass is backward.

You're kidding, right? How can a ball flipped forward (toward the opponent's end line) to a player coming in front of the passer be anything other than a forward pass?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by CT1

You're kidding, right? How can a ball flipped forward (toward the opponent's end line) to a player coming in front of the passer be anything other than a forward pass?

Somebody might describe such a pass as "forward" that technically isn't. And if your view is from behind the player receiving it, his body could easily obscure the release point and/or the point he touches the ball.

If the passer is backing up at the time he releases the ball, a ball that doesn't travel forward thru the air can easily seem to because it can wind up closer to the opposing end line than the passer's hands are -- because the passer's hands moved backward subsequent to the release.

A chest pass is nearly always a forward pass under those circumstances, but an underhand flip in a well-timed jet series often isn't. The distinction is important, as there are teams that deliberately choose the pass over handing the ball on such a play, thinking that if the ball is muffed it'll be dead on hitting the ground. I don't think the game should be made any easier for them just because they want it to be considered a forward pass.

[CT1]

Well, I'm just a poor dumb WH, but I can tell you that nobody -- NOBODY -- involved (offense, defense, peanut vendor) wants such a pass to be anything but forward. And I don't know of any official who would make such a technical distinction on the field.