NCAA kickoff

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by AllPurposeGamer

Rule 6, Section I, Article 2

b. After the ball has been made ready for play all players on the kicking team except the kicker must be no more than five yards behind their restraining line. A player satisfies this rule when one foot is on or beyond the line five yards behind the restraining line. If one player is more than five yards behind the restraining line and any other player kicks the ball, it is a foul.

Funny, I downloaded their 2011-12 football rules (with 2012 changes) today and this was not in it. Presumably they have a link somewhere labeled something like, "Surprise, New Edition!". Was this a case (as sometimes happens with such governing bodies) that they resolved to make no changes in a succeeding year (except one or more I see was scheduled to come into effect the 2nd year of use of the book) so as to keep a book current for longer and promote stability of administration, and then they changed their mind?

I bet they don't expect to take this rule literally as prohibiting all players of A/K from being more than 5 yds. behind their line the entire time the ball is RFP. They probably meant it to apply only when team A/K "shows" ready or begins an actual run to kick off & cover. They probably don't mean that once the ball is RFP, their players can't still be huddling, for instance, >5 yds. back.

Any indication of why they made this change? Just to make the coverage a tiny bit slower?