Purpose of the beanbag....

[Cobra]

Originally Posted by Canned Heat

Backwards pass, whether purposely thrown or not, is a lateral (aka:fumble) and is a live ball.

What? How can a backwards pass be a fumble when the definition of a fumble is "any loss of player possession other than by handing, passing or legal kick"? It says right there that a pass isn't a fumble. Backward pass (no S on the end) is also defined. They are completely different acts. And how is a lateral also known as a fumble? I thought lateral was a made up word for a backward pass. Just another reason why you should not be using made up undefined terms when explaining the rules.

In NCAA rules backward passes and fumbles are treated very differently. As you can see on this play it was 4th down and a backward pass was thrown which hit the ground. It was then recovered by A (someone other than the player who threw the pass) and advanced past the line to gain.



Fumbles on 4th down can't be advanced by someone else but a backward pass is different.