NCAA kickoff

[referee20]

Free kick. A2 is at his 27yd line to kick off. As he approaches the ball, A44 is at the A 33yd line and kicks the ball onside, team A recovers at the A49.
Is this a foul under the new 6-1-2-b? Is A2 now legal since he is within 5 yds at the time the ball was kicked by A44?

[jTheUmp]

I'm assuming the the free kick line is the 35.

This should be a foul for illegal free kick formation... the kicking team may only have one player behind the 30 yard line, and that player must be the one to kick the ball.

[Robert Goodman]

Is this a post-publication change? It's not in the PDF, either in the body of the rules themselves or the list of changes. Did they put a slip of paper in the book?

[Welpe]

It was a change for this year and there is a new PDF on the NCAA site.

[Texas Aggie]

All but the kicker have to be within 5 yards of their restraining line at the ready for play. Having one foot on the restraining line constitutes being within 5 yards.

At my (HS) game last week, neither team had practiced this. Virtually all kickoffs had 5 yards added to the resulting dead ball spot.

[Tom.OH]

Originally Posted by Texas Aggie

All but the kicker have to be within 5 yards of their restraining line at the ready for play. Having one foot on the restraining line constitutes being within 5 yards.

At my (HS) game last week, neither team had practiced this. Virtually all kickoffs had 5 yards added to the resulting dead ball spot.

You would think the coaches would pick up on that and make some corrections!

[APG]

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.

[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?