2018 NFHS Rules Changes

[ilyazhito]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

But I was just pointing out that if deterring such fouls is your aim, why would you make a change that affects only the penalties for fouls by team B?

I'm looking for your justif'n for such a penalty in any of the various play situations where such fouls could occur, especially when the value of an AFD varies depending on what the down & distance situation was.

I believe that the NCAA chose to tag all personal fouls by B with the automatic first down to deter fouls in situations where the yardage assessed would not be enough to award A a first down, when A would have otherwise received a first down from the yards gained by penalty. DPI was (and is) an automatic first down, regardless of yards gained, because of the potential for strategic misuse, and the fact that a penalty without the automatic first down gives the defense a "freebie" when yardage is of no consequence. Perhaps the rule makers believed that the 15-yard penalty is an adequate deterrent for the offense, because 1st and 25, 2nd and 20, etc. would put an offense behind schedule, and force them to catch up, and they believed that the converse situation (offense fouls with their backs to their own goal line, making the yardage penalty trivial) would not happen, because there is no purpose for the offense to foul to go backwards. This is why there is no "Loss of Down if committed by A" provision next to the enforcement statement for personal fouls anywhere in the NCAA rulebook. For the record, there are no 15-yard, loss of down fouls (most are for procedural errors, such as a forward pass ahead of the line of scrimmage (5 yards from spot of the foul), intentional grounding (spot of the foul), or illegally batting a kick (10 yards from the previous spot, loss of down)).