10 seconds left in the half. Team A has no timeouts. They throw a hitch to R88, and he catches the ball and quickly realizes that he has no chance of scoring or getting out of bounds. Before he is hit (so no forward progress is established) he laterals the ball out of bounds, thus stopping the clock. They run the FG unit out, and make a 42 yarder as time expires.
Legal play? We thought so. Saw this in a scrimmage on Saturday.

Smart to give his team time to set up
for a field goal !!
I'm glad that it actually happened !!!
This very same possibility was discussed around
here earlier. I posted a hypothetical similar to
what you saw. Another poster said no high school
kid would think of that.
So-- you never know-- do you ??

It was very suprising
 

even his coaches started jumping his butt, asking him "what the hell do you think you are doing?"
He clearly did it on purpose. He must be a pretty heads up kid, and he only lost maybe 2 yards on the lateral.
Hopefully his coaches applauded him after.
Too bad it was a scrimmage and not the homecoming game.

Great play. No such thing as an illegal backward pass.

We keep talking about these weird plays and we might start seeing them more in games once coaches find out what is legal.

Smart play to stop the clock. I'm surprised we don't see it more often.

Illegal under NCAA rules. 5 yards from spot of foul and loss of down.

Under NCAA Rules
 

What exactly is the violation?

Peace

7-2-1
ARTICLE 1. A runner may hand or pass the ball backward at any time,except to throw the ball intentionally out of bounds to conserve time. PENALTY—Five yards from the spot of the foul; also loss of down if by Team A before team possession changes during a scrimmage
down .

We use the same signal as for an illegal forward pass.

I guess it's always possible that there would be one, guy. ;)

Legal play in NF. Just have to get a good mark on where it crossed the sideline.

Thanks Mike, I did forget about the "conserve time" enforcement at the NCAA level.

Peace

yep, it just one of the 2 million other NCAA/NF differences. More this year because of the PSK rule fiasco..

This is legal in Canada using the amateur rule set as well - a backwards laterla OOB means that you retain possession - at the spot where the ball went OOB.

Good play to conserve time and the one more play to happen.

Mike

KLAV18....I'm surprised at you. As an official you no there is no such thing as a "lateral". A thrown ball is either a forward or backward pass. What isn't a forward pass must a backward pass. Just a clarification.

I think it's obvious more than just us referees look at this board......

You're right
 

accept my most humble apology.
However, we all know that if I would have told the coach that a player threw a backward pass, his head would start smoking and his ears might pop off.
I'm pretty sure everyone understood what I meant by lateral.
But, you are right.