forward progress when caught in the air

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by bisonlj

Bob...what's your interpretation of my situation (assuming NFHS) where the defender does make contact with the airborne receiver in the end zone and pushes him back but the receiver gets away? As we've discussed at clinics and association meetings, forward progress doesn't apply in this case because the runner got free.

It's not a matter of forward progress. The player who wound up with the ball was never moving forward, so how can he have had forward progress? Rather, it's possession of the ball beyond the opposing goal line. I believe that in that case, the word "caught" is to be read in its natural meaning, rather than the technical meaning as in the definition of "catch". I could be wrong, but I think Fed was just sloppy in wording it and that my way was the way they meant it.

We had this also with the situation of a player's catching the ball while off the ground and passing it again before touching the ground. If you look at the definition of "pass", that'd seem to be impossible, but it doesn't make much sense unless you ignore the technicality in such a case.

Robert