Legal?

[Ed Hickland]

Originally Posted by ref1986

Right as usual, Ed. If a player is lying on the ground, he probably has both feet on the ground. No way that's hurdling.

Ref, true, lying on the ground and you step, jump, hop, whatever, over him you are not hurdling. Not the case here.

[With_Two_Flakes]

The more I watch it, the more it looks like he puts a hand on a teammates shoulder and also steps onto the snappers back (there is a little stutter step as he goes over the snapper).

So if this was an NCAA Rules game.
It looks like he puts his hand on a teammates shoulder to get a little extra leverage? Can't do that: 9-3-5-b-2
It looks like possibly one of his feet is on the snapper's back as he jumps over?
9-1-2-q says "no player may step, jump or stand on an opponent. No defensive player.........may land on any player(s)."
9-1-2-r says " a defensive player may not initiate contact with the snapper until one second..." A foot on his back sounds like contact to me.


If this is a NFHS game.
9-4-3-e "No player shall position himself on the shoulders or body of a teammate or opponent to gain an advantage."
Exclusively NCAA Rules here in Europe so I only get to work Fed Rules on occasional trips to the USA. Could / should 9-4-3-e be interpreted to cover what the kid does on this film?

As for both the NCAA and Fed definitions of hurdling, I wonder what the intent of those Rules Ctte's really was when they wrote those words.

Interesting that the NCAA definition says "over an opponent who is still on his feet". I could easily take that to mean a player who has not yet fallen over. I could easily regard someone still in a 3 point stance moments after the snap to be "still on his feet and not yet fallen over".

[TXMike]

I do not have the same quality video player as BigJ but what I saw was the jumper tapping a teammate on the shoulder after he was already over the line and past it. That is NOT using a teammate to gain leverage to gain height. I also do not see the jumper stepping on the snapper.


NCAA - A player in a 3 point stance is NOT still on his feet by definition as that requires he have nothing except a foot or feet touching the ground In a 3 point stance he has a hand on the ground so he is not "on his feet"

[JasonTX]

Originally Posted by With_Two_Flakes

Interesting that the NCAA definition says "over an opponent who is still on his feet". I could easily take that to mean a player who has not yet fallen over. I could easily regard someone still in a 3 point stance moments after the snap to be "still on his feet and not yet fallen over".

NCAA has defined still "on his feet" on 2-14-1-b. "On his feet" means that no other part of the opponent's body other than one or both feet is in contact with the ground.

What that means is that if the oppenent has a hand on the ground then it would not be hurdling since there is another part of his body contacting the ground.

[Ed Hickland]

Think there is one thing everyone can agree, there is a personal foul here. At the 17 second mark it looks as though he vaults himself in the air by stepping on the back of the snapper. His contact with a teammate is slight or incidential.

For us NFHS types we have a choice of roughing the snapper, or, hurdling. Since roughing the snapper has an automatic first down that would be my call.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by With_Two_Flakes

The more I watch it, the more it looks like he puts a hand on a teammates shoulder and also steps onto the snappers back (there is a little stutter step as he goes over the snapper).

So if this was an NCAA Rules game.
It looks like he puts his hand on a teammates shoulder to get a little extra leverage? Can't do that: 9-3-5-b-2
It looks like possibly one of his feet is on the snapper's back as he jumps over?
9-1-2-q says "no player may step, jump or stand on an opponent. No defensive player.........may land on any player(s)."
9-1-2-r says " a defensive player may not initiate contact with the snapper until one second..." A foot on his back sounds like contact to me.


If this is a NFHS game.
9-4-3-e "No player shall position himself on the shoulders or body of a teammate or opponent to gain an advantage."
Exclusively NCAA Rules here in Europe so I only get to work Fed Rules on occasional trips to the USA. Could / should 9-4-3-e be interpreted to cover what the kid does on this film?

It should not. The rules on pyramiding and related height-gaining forms of contact have been worked over in the past few decades by the 3 major USAn codes (probably the Canadian ones too) in full cognizance of each other's efforts, and the differences in wording can be presumed to be deliberate. "Position himself" means exactly that, and does not refer to leveraging oneself upward momentarily during play.

Robert

[waltjp]

Hard to tell if the defender contacted the snapper on his way over him but at the very least we have a flag for hurdling.

[With_Two_Flakes]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

It should not. The rules on pyramiding and related height-gaining forms of contact......etc "Position himself" means exactly that, and does not refer to leveraging oneself upward momentarily during play.

Thanks for that Robert. Hadn't even considered the human pyramid situation. We've only had football over here in the UK for 25 years, so that has never been an issue.

[Rich]

I only watched it once.

If the hand is on the ground, it's not hurdling. Lots of twisted logic above in this thread, but "only" means "only". If the hand is on the ground then "only the feet" is not true.

It looks like the guy stepped on the back on the snapper, which should be RTS. Half the distance and retry.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by RichMSN

If the hand is on the ground, it's not hurdling. Lots of twisted logic above in this thread, but "only" means "only". If the hand is on the ground then "only the feet" is not true.

That's what I'd been writing, but somebody in the thread was making my head spin when he wrote otherwise, and then was ostensibly backed up by others who actually contradicted him but didn't acknowledge so!

It looks like the guy stepped on the back on the snapper, which should be RTS.

I don't see how that's roughing the snapper any more than by a rusher who in trying to penetrate the A gap makes incidental contact with the snapper. Or even more than incidental, if it's an attempt to get around him rather than to run thru him or shake him up, as implied by Fed's "charge directly into" wording.

Robert

[Warrenkicker]

I don't have hurdling. The snapper had at least one hand on the ground and possibly both. That excludes this action from the rule.

I also did not see any contact between the jumper's foot and the snapper. There may have possibly been a touch but the jumper did not gain elevation at or after the contact and the snapper was not forced down toward the ground at the same instant. If you stepped on someone there would be a visible result of that contact and I saw none. I think this was more of a "Michael Jordan" move where the foot paused in mid-air while the body passed over it.

This type of block doesn't work that often as it is very difficult to time it up that well and the jumper is quite vulnerable in the air.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

That's what I'd been writing, but somebody in the thread was making my head spin when he wrote otherwise, and then was ostensibly backed up by others who actually contradicted him but didn't acknowledge so!


I don't see how that's roughing the snapper any more than by a rusher who in trying to penetrate the A gap makes incidental contact with the snapper. Or even more than incidental, if it's an attempt to get around him rather than to run thru him or shake him up, as implied by Fed's "charge directly into" wording.

Robert

I'm really ambivalent about flagging this for RTS, but I'm also looking at the spirit and intent of the rule.

The snapper is protected because he's not in a position to protect himself. If a 200+ pound linebacker is stepping in the middle of his back, isn't this something we should be protecting the snapper from?

I understand why this wasn't flagged, though. From the video, it's hard to tell if he just went clean over the top or not. And if it was clean, it was *not* hurdling as the snapper's hand was on the ground. We agree on that.

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by With_Two_Flakes

Thanks for that Robert. Hadn't even considered the human pyramid situation. We've only had football over here in the UK for 25 years, so that has never been an issue.

If BAFRA's been using NCAA rules for that long, then you might've started when they outlawed only standing on teammates' shoulders and said that other forms of pyramid formation were still legal. It was strange to have a passage in the rules that said something was legal (rather than just an exception to something illegal), but that extraordinary language was in there at least as late as 1983.

Anyway, the human pyramid to block kicks used to be a common tactic in American and Canadian football. I think the original reason for outlawing it might've been safety, considering what happens when the pyramid falls, there being no prohibition on knocking out its props. So now they leave that to the cheerleaders on the hard surface off the field. But I think the competitive cheerleading rulesmakers now limit human pyramids to 3 levels.

On the other other hand, lifting in the lineout used to be illegal in rugby, and now you can hurl players into the air to play the ball.

Robert

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by Ed Hickland

Ref, true, lying on the ground and you step, jump, hop, whatever, over him you are not hurdling. Not the case here.

Then why did you write that he had at least his feet on the ground? That was irrelevant.

[Ed Hickland]

Originally Posted by Robert Goodman

Then why did you write that he had at least his feet on the ground? That was irrelevant.

Because if the snapper's feet are on the ground, he is not lying on the ground or in the air; therefore, the player is hurdling.

You cannot be on the ground or in the air if your feet are on the ground which is extremely relevant when determining if a player has been hurdled.