Pass attempt breaks the plane

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Lots of things can happen on the field after the ball becomes dead, but the only ones of concern to officials as officials would be personal and non-contact fouls. Then it's a matter of enforcements for fouls that occur between the scoring of a touchdown and the readying of the ball for a try -- and I fortunately as a non-official don't have to keep up with the latest from the various codes on when the try begins and what the penalty options are!

I might as well amplify on the reason the answer is "no". When a live ball becomes loose, it can be ruled retroactively to have been a forward pass based on motion of the extremity holding the ball before it became loose. That's it -- ruling on a loose ball as to whether it was a forward pass, as opposed to a backward pass or fumble. If the ball wasn't live and loose, the prior motion of the ball while it was still held has no bearing on anything. The intention of the player to make a forward pass has no bearing on anything.

I don't see why this should require so much thought. You wouldn't have a problem if the runner's knee touched the ground before he got a pass away, would you? Or if his foot touched a sideline, right? The ball's touching the vertical plane of the opposing goal line while in a player's possession is a case of the same thing. It could happen because a player looking for a receiver can't always be expected to know where the goal line is. In Federation rules, a player with a long reach might even have a foot in a place from which he could throw a legal forward pass when the ball touches that plane.

I don't see why it should, either. That's why I asked a question that I felt was salient and would answer the OP's query.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Cliffdweller

Yes, it's a TD and the wings better sell it, especially if it falls incomplete.

How about the old "punch" signal to make instantly clear that's why it was a TD? Or would that make it instantly unclear because nobody can read that signal now?

[HLin NC]

We have a TD signal and an incomplete signal already.

[BIG UMP]

Let's delve further into this.

In a 5 man crew who is going to see this, I say no one? Once the wings read pass they are sliding downfield, the U is probably not going to have a good enough view for that call and the R is deep.

7-man is different, wings don't slide downfield, but probably going to be hard to pick up.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by BIG UMP

Let's delve further into this.

In a 5 man crew who is going to see this, I say no one? Once the wings read pass they are sliding downfield,

In a situation like this, how deep could they possibly slide? How much could they benefit by going any deeper than the goal line? Or is the problem that the wings take their eyes off the ball entirely and watch potential receivers and defenders?

Once the quarterback scrambles, doesn't anybody get in position to tell whether a forward pass is legal?

[ajmc]

Coverage on these situations is often a collaboration between the Umpire and Referee.

For an IP thrown from clearly beyond the line, The R is responsible for judging "Intent" on a pass deliberately thrown incomplete to avoid loss of yardage, or thrown into an area without eligible receivers (Wing officials may offer assistance regarding receivers who may have cut the wrong way, fell or otherwise were prevented from following a planned route)

For passes beyond/ behind the NZ, both the R and U have responsibility for breaches of the NZ. the R, following the passer needs to determine the spot form which the pass was thrown, and when necessary carefully beanbag that spot, and continue officiating.

The U usually retreating to the area of the LOS, when determining "pass", to best observe the area of LOS blocking, should also mark the "spot of the pass" with a beanbag, and also continue officiating.

After the play is completed, either/both beanbags should be checked (against the down marker) to determine whether the NZ has been violated. If so, a delayed flag should be thrown.

As always, if more than 1 official is involved with the actual call, they should confer, review and agree on a single decision, BEFORE and signals are given.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by ajmc

Coverage on these situations is often a collaboration between the Umpire and Referee.

For an IP thrown from clearly beyond the line, The R is responsible for judging "Intent" on a pass deliberately thrown incomplete to avoid loss of yardage, or thrown into an area without eligible receivers (Wing officials may offer assistance regarding receivers who may have cut the wrong way, fell or otherwise were prevented from following a planned route)

For passes beyond/ behind the NZ, both the R and U have responsibility for breaches of the NZ. the R, following the passer needs to determine the spot form which the pass was thrown, and when necessary carefully beanbag that spot, and continue officiating.

The U usually retreating to the area of the LOS, when determining "pass", to best observe the area of LOS blocking, should also mark the "spot of the pass" with a beanbag, and also continue officiating.

After the play is completed, either/both beanbags should be checked (against the down marker) to determine whether the NZ has been violated. If so, a delayed flag should be thrown.

As always, if more than 1 official is involved with the actual call, they should confer, review and agree on a single decision, BEFORE and signals are given.

That's all fine, but with 5 officials is there nobody likely to have a view down the goal line? How about with 4?

Say the R and U both were looking at the passer's feet as he threw, and got their beanbags very well spotted. Would anybody have been looking at the ball and the goal line? If they walk up to where the beanbags are, decide the forward pass was illegal, and then try to deduce the enforcement spot, is anybody likely to say the end of the run (where the ball was) was in the end zone? If they decide the pass was legal, then they're not even concerned with an enforcement spot.

It occurs to me now that if everybody -- quarterback, officials, onlookers -- was thinking "pass", then missing a call like this on the goal line is not such a big deal.

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

That's all fine, but with 5 officials is there nobody likely to have a view down the goal line? How about with 4?

Perhaps, if whenever NFHS games are universally managed by 6, then 7, then 8 field officials technology will have advanced to support a possible 9th (aerial official-AJ) that will float (either in person, or by drone) over the field of play, so that even one-in-a trillion possibilities will have documented rule and mechanics coverage.

Likely, until then, we'll have to continue relying on the common sense and skill of whomever the 4, 5, 6 or 7 assigned to the game are able to provide.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

That's all fine, but with 5 officials is there nobody likely to have a view down the goal line? How about with 4?

Say the R and U both were looking at the passer's feet as he threw, and got their beanbags very well spotted. Would anybody have been looking at the ball and the goal line? If they walk up to where the beanbags are, decide the forward pass was illegal, and then try to deduce the enforcement spot, is anybody likely to say the end of the run (where the ball was) was in the end zone? If they decide the pass was legal, then they're not even concerned with an enforcement spot.

It occurs to me now that if everybody -- quarterback, officials, onlookers -- was thinking "pass", then missing a call like this on the goal line is not such a big deal.

It also occurs to me that in NFL rules you wouldn't have anybody beanbagging the foot position of the passer, since there it's only about whether the ball has gone beyond the neutral zone before it was launched, so even if they didn't have the full NFL complement of officials, they probably wouldn't miss the ball's breaking the plane of the goal line.

Since the NFL, NCAA and Fed all started with the same rules committee after the forward pass came into the game, I wonder whether which one changed this determination of whether the pass is legal. It'd be interesting to know why.

[ajmc]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Since the NFL, NCAA and Fed all started with the same rules committee after the forward pass came into the game, I wonder whether which one changed this determination of whether the pass is legal. It'd be interesting to know why.

Since the NFL, NCAA and NFHS rules each concentrate on adaptions of the game designed to address significantly different environments, related to player skill, physical capabilities and talents, personal maturity, financial objectives as well as team objectives including specific financial goals & objectives, marketing, training and coaching practices and necessities and overall corporate, and/or specific institutional issues, it seems appropriate that there are both subtle, as well as significant, rule modifications, unique to each code designed to address these unique, and different, objectives.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by ajmc

Since the NFL, NCAA and NFHS rules each concentrate on adaptions of the game designed to address significantly different environments, related to player skill, physical capabilities and talents, personal maturity, financial objectives as well as team objectives including specific financial goals & objectives, marketing, training and coaching practices and necessities and overall corporate, and/or specific institutional issues, it seems appropriate that there are both subtle, as well as significant, rule modifications, unique to each code designed to address these unique, and different, objectives.

It's hard to believe this subtle difference had any bearing on those considerations. Also hard to believe the case we're discussing had any bearing on it!

What I'd like to look up some time is whether the NFL changed it, or NCAA with Fed copying the motif, or Fed with NCAA copying.