Interference or not

[Racky]

The situtation came up on another board about "tackling" the pitch man on the option.

I said that you can't "tackle" him before he has the ball, that would be holding, but you can hit him. But now I'm wondering if that would constitute, pass interference, because it is a "backward pass" and you can not interfere with the receivers right to the ball.

So what would a ref call this???

Racky