Alabama-Auburn

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by JasonTX

An invalid signal causes the ball to become dead. It's not a foul in NCAA. In 13 years that I've been using NCAA rules its never been a foul. It just causes the ball to become dead.

They used to have illegal fair catch signal as well as invalid one, but did away with it. Over a long period of time the fair catch provisions in NCAA (and its predecessor rules committee) were tinkered with so often that John Wilson chose to highlight (along with changes in the substitution provisions) the changes in his 1976 booklet on the centenary of the football rules committee. Interestingly, not long after that booklet came out, those provisions settled down. I wonder whether his booklet had any influence on that.