Question for the board

[Mike L]

grant...also see in your quote of 7.5.2L, (I too only have the 2007 casebook with me).
In the explanation of the ruling: "completed pass in both (a) and (b), the contact by B1 changed the direction of A2 and he is given forward progess (emphasis mine). So we have 2 different casebook rulings that appear to be in conflict with each other.
I still say, the opinion in the casebook regarding 3.4.3c is wrong. 4.2.2 says it's wrong and the wording here says it's wrong.

[grantsrc]

Originally Posted by Mike L

grant...also see in your quote of 7.5.2L, (I too only have the 2007 casebook with me).
In the explanation of the ruling: "completed pass in both (a) and (b), the contact by B1 changed the direction of A2 and he is given forward progess (emphasis mine). So we have 2 different casebook rulings that appear to be in conflict with each other.
I still say, the opinion in the casebook regarding 3.4.3c is wrong. 4.2.2 says it's wrong and the wording here says it's wrong.

Mike,

If I am understanding all this correctly now (and lord knows that is a strecth for me recently ), in either play we are going to award forward progress. The impact on the clock depends on whether A was controlled in bounds by B or not. So if A is merely pushed out in an opposite direction he was heading, you award forward progress and stop the clock because he wasn't controled in bounds by B. Now if B wrapped the airborne A player up and drove him OOB, I would say that the clock runs in this case since his forward progress was stopped in bounds and then driven out of bounds.

Is that along the right train of thought?

IMHO, on Saturday and Sunday in either case they are going to wind the clock, and from what I've been told by some D1 guys, that if there is a shadow of a doubt in their mind, they are going to wind it unless they are under 5 minutes left in the half. Can we apply that to our level? Possibly.

[Mike L]

I think the clock runs according to whatever you have with the stopped progress and really has nothing to do with him being knocked out of bounds. Stopped progress is stopped progress regardless of how it occurs. There is the possibility of progress being stopped without the player being controlled. Say a runner has advance to the 40, is hit by a defender that takes him straight back so the first thing that hits the ground is his back side at the 42. Just one of those hilite film big hits. Are you going to spot the ball at the 40 (progress spot) or the 42 (down spot)? Throw the sideline in, say because of the hit he flies OOB at the 42. Where do you spot the ball? So why, when dealing with an airborne receiver being knocked OOB do we suddenly ignore the dead ball rules stated in 4.2.2?
Hey, and for Sundays it is apparently all going to be a moot point. Per a San Diego Union article this weekend, Mike Carey was instructing the Chargers about some new rule changes for this year, one of them being if the receiver gets knocked out prior to getting both feet down, it's incomplete. No more judgement calls on would he have landing in. Also, it seems the NFL is going to allow a defer option on the coin toss now.

[Robert Goodman]

I say the time determination and spot determination are separate issues, and here's why:

The reason for the provision stopping the clock on out of bounds was because of the extra time necessary to return the ball to play from farther away. Yeah, it's not much farther away when the runner takes just that extra step to go out of bounds, but they drew the line somewhere. I suppose they could've applied the same rationale to balls dead in a side zone, returning it to the hash, but they didn't.

The reason for allowing forward progress in determining the spot was to avoid a prolonged mauling of the runner by the defense to improve their spot. It was possible for the runner to yell "down" if he chose not to be pushed farther back, but the officials didn't like being in the position of recognizing whose voice was saying that, so even though they retained that option in the rule book for a long time (only NCAA having eliminated it so far AFAIK), it wasn't exactly encouraged when forward progress was put into the rules.

Certain means by which the ball becomes dead are sufficient to determine clock status, but not to determine the spot for the next down. They're separate issues, connected only in some cases. When someone carrying the ball is carried or thrown backwards by an opponent, the ball can still become dead by any of various means, and even the time the ball becomes dead is not determined by when that player started to be carried or thrown backward. You wouldn't put a second or more back on the clock because that time elapsed between when the runner started to be pushed backward and when his foot hit the sideline, would you?

Robert