NCAA Numbering
 

Does NCAA have a numbering restriction for an end?

Play: A comes to the line of scrimmage with #89 on the end. #89 steps into the backfield, and a back on the other side of the formation steps forward (so there are only four backs). This leaves #75 as the end. Legal? (To be clear, there are no motion / illegal shift / other illegal formation considerations here -- only the number issue)

Legal.

75 is ineligible by number, but otherwise no problem.


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thanks -- just a question that was raised up in the booth last weekend

Other than in NFL rules or when a team is taking advantage of the scrimmage kick formation exceptions in NCAA, the only requirement relates to the count of the players with ineligible numbers on the O line. Where on the line they position themselves is unrestricted.

Why NFL has increased restrictions on who can be positioned where, I don't know. Except for a recent change that really didn't affect where players could be positioned in any one game (but apparently had been enforceable only as to a club's pattern of giving players unusual number for their position), their additional formation restrictions in recent decades seem to be directed at diminishing deception and making play more predictable.

In NCAA and Fed, the philosophy is that as long as team A doesn't appear to gain eligible receivers, but may actually lose them by lining up a certain way, why penalize them?