NCAA Question @ Defensive returns

[Da Official]

I really need help to understand the following:

According to NCAA rules, Can the defense score Touchdowns on interceptions or fumbles on:

Regulation extra point tries?

OverTime downs?

OverTime extra point tries?



Please cite any applicable NCAA rules if possible.

Thanks!

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by Da Official

I really need help to understand the following:

Can the defense score Touchdowns on interceptions or fumbles on:

Regulation extra point tries?

OverTime downs?

OverTime extra point tries?

CANADIAN RULING:

No - as soon as B obtains possession, the PAT is over.

Yes - B scoring on the play ends the game.

No - as soon as B obtains possession, the PAT is over.

[TXMike]

Originally Posted by Da Official

I really need help to understand the following:

According to NCAA rules, Can the defense score Touchdowns on interceptions or fumbles on:

Regulation extra point tries?

OverTime downs?

OverTime extra point tries?



Please cite any applicable NCAA rules if possible.

Thanks!

Yes, yes and yes
Rule 3 for Extra Periods and Ruile 8 for Extra Point Downs

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

CANADIAN RULING:

No - as soon as B obtains possession, the PAT is over.

Yes - B scoring on the play ends the game.

No - as soon as B obtains possession, the PAT is over.

Didn't the CFL (though not Football Canada) adopt 2-way scoring on converts? Am I misremembering, or did they abolish it after a while?

[JugglingReferee]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Didn't the CFL (though not Football Canada) adopt 2-way scoring on converts? Am I misremembering, or did they abolish it after a while?

For years I've been posting Canadian rulings and you are the first to mention something that brings up the fact that I should really be saying, for all my Canadian Rulings posts, "Canadian Amateur Ruling". Since the CFL, if ever in my future, is a long ways away, my approach is to assume the amateur game.

But yes, B can earn two points for scoring a TD on A's PAT. In fact, the recent re-launch of the CFL magazine had a story about scoring points and some history of scoring points (TDs were once worth 5 points, etc). In the article they failed to mention B's 2 points for a TD on A's PAT. I promptly wrote a letter to the editor and in the next issue, it was published! There it was: in print: my name.

If FC ever had 2-way scoring on PATs, it was way before my time. And for long as I've known, the CFL has had 2-way scoring on PATs.

Edit: True Story:

Watching a CFL game once and team B had a big lead at halftime. Into the 4th, A is catching up and late in the 4th (< 2min left), A scores a TD to take a 1-point lead. They go for 2 for the 3 point lead in the event that B is in place to kick a FG on their last possession of the game. So Team A throws a forward pass, and...... and...... B intercepts, and runs it back 115 yards for 2 points. Now B has the lead again, by 1. A subsequently kicks off to B and B runs out the clock.

It was a crazy finish. A played nearly perfect football in the 2nd half; then the interception came.

[Da Official]

Thanks guys!

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JugglingReferee

If FC ever had 2-way scoring on PATs, it was way before my time. And for long as I've known, the CFL has had 2-way scoring on PATs.

It's remarks like the above that lead me to believe football officials have short careers, almost as short as the players'.

Seems I'm older than most readers here (I'm 53) and on top of that I'm a scholar on the history of this game. To me, 2 way scoring on tries is a fairly recent thing. NCAA adopted it first, then CFL shortly afterward. Football Canada (it may have still been CAFA) never adopted it, unless they snuck it in and quickly got rid of it while I wasn't looking. Canadian football is going thru an era in which the pros are more likely or quicker than the amateurs to adopt, or adapt, US college or HS rules; it's also part of an era of increasing tolerance or preference for divergence between Canadian amateur & pro rules, following an era of convergence culminating in the early 1970s when they published 2 successive annual editions of a single rule book for Canadian football.

2-way scoring on tries is IMO a lamentable digression from what I'm hoping will be the abolition of extra points entirely. As I wrote in this article on the history of the try, there has long been the sense that the try was vestigial, but rather than doing the logical thing and simply doing away with it, the tendency in the past half century has been to dress it up, first by introducing 2-point options (which Canadian football was almost as late to adopt as the NFL), and later by the NCAA's introduction of 2-way scoring. ISTR that recently some league even adopted a 3 point conversion option, snapping the ball from a distance farther back the the usual one. What's next, 2-down tries?

I think you'll find that questions here concerning the administration of the try are disproportionate compared to the amount of the game they occupy. Do penalties carry over to the try, past the try, or from the try? When does a try begin & end? When is the ball dead? What is the value of scores, and are certain scores even possible? They could just as well rename that part or parts of the rule book, "Gotcha".

Maybe the new AAFL can be persuaded to abolish the try.

Robert