NCAA rule change: Kickoff fair catch inside 25 to be touchback

[oxrageous]

The NCAA announced today that on all kickoffs in college football, the receiving team will have the option to fair catch the ball anywhere inside the 25-yard line and have the play count as a touchback.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/04/13/ncaa-approves-biggest-change-yet-to-kickoff-rule/

Discuss.

 

[gardnerwebbgator]

More pussification of football

 

[Captain Sasquatch]

Next step in the process is coaches having kickers do nothing but squib kick it inside the 15 yard line, and they'll make sure the kickers are good at it.

 

[BMF]

Looks like this rule passed....

 

[78]

I'm having a hard time imagining a fair catch at the 25.

 

[Zambo]

Next step in the process is coaches having kickers do nothing but squib kick it inside the 15 yard line, and they'll make sure the kickers are good at it.

Yup. Heck I've always thought they should do it anyway. How often does an up-back make any sort of decent return. Squibbing it to him is a chance for a fumble. By trying to eliminate the violence of kickoff hits, they might just encourage more of it.

 

[T REX]

If participation wasn't heading in the wrong direction you might not see this. Gotta try to cut down on concussions.

 

[KronoGator]

At least this will put an end to the ridiculous 'kick it high inside the 5' crap.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Are they still keeping score?

 

[5-Star Finger]

It seems they want to eliminate KO's altogether....

The team receiving a kickoff would be allowed to make a fair catch between its goal line and 25-yard line and have it result in a touchback under an NCAA Football Rules Committee proposal.

"The committee discussed the kickoff play at great length and we will continue to work to find ways to improve the play," said North Carolina coach and committee chairman Larry Fedora. "We believe making one change (this year) will allow us to study the effect of this change in terms of player safety."

In no sense does this "improve the play." I don't think this will have much of an effect on player safety for many of the reasons mentioned here already. Maybe we should just go ahead and change the pig skin to a Nerf ball and instead of tackling and blocking we can have them gently tap each other with pool noodles. Next.

The committee also proposed that offensive players not be allowed to block below the waist more than 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Those blocks also would have to be from the front, except in the case of interior linemen.

I thought this had already become a rule. Was the old rule 10 yards instead of 5? Maybe this hurts traditional option teams most.

The committee approved two pace-of-play proposals. After a touchdown, the play clock would be set at 40 seconds to expedite the extra point or two-point conversion attempt. Following a kickoff, the play clock would be set to 40 seconds to restart play more quickly.

Okay, they aren't complete idiots.

Also, the committee approved the addition of a 10-second runoff when instant replay overturns the ruling on the field inside of one minute in either half and the correct ruling would not have stopped the game clock.

No. No. No. No. No.

So replays are booth reviews under two minutes, correct? Now if the booth decides to look at a play there is a 10 second run off to penalize the team on the field if the booth got it wrong. No. That is ridiculous. Imagine if last season against UT there had been some kind of replay issue on the play just before the bomb. No. That is just further taking the outcome of the game away from the teams on the field. Terrible rule.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

The NCAA announced today that on all kickoffs in college football,
....

Discuss.

Ox had to merge his own thread.

 

[EyeDocGator]

Are they still keeping score?

Yes, but everyone will get a participation trophy.

 

[BNAG8R]

Ox had to merge his own thread.

 

[B52G8rAC]

Oh! Oh! I know. We can make the game much safer by limiting participants to those who meet the Metlife weight to height standards and limiting running speeds to the measured average across the general student population. So, someone who is 6'2" could weight a maximum of 192 (I think that's what they told me in college) and no one could run a 40 faster than 5.6. Problems solved.

 

[BMF]

Oh! Oh! I know. We can make the game much safer by limiting participants to those who meet the Metlife weight to height standards and limiting running speeds to the measured average across the general student population. So, someone who is 6'2" could weight a maximum of 192 (I think that's what they told me in college) and no one could run a 40 faster than 5.6. Problems solved.

That's called Sprint Football. The academies have this sport.

 

[BMF]

Saban comments on this, very valid points. It's complete non-sense on the NCAA's part:



“I would have liked to have seen a different solution. I understand the reason, I respect the reason — which is player safety, but I guess I’ve been around long enough to remember when we use to kick off from the 40-yard line,” Saban said. “There were too many touchbacks, so we moved it back to the 35.

“So, for us old timers, I thought it would be an easier solution to just move it back up to the 40-yard line, because you’d get more touchbacks but you could still sky kick, onside kick — which you can still do some of those things, but you sky kick trying to give someone bad field position and they can fair catch the ball on the 15-yard line and get it on the 25.

“That takes some of the strategy out of the game, to me, with the result that we had. And you would have had the same result if you just moved it up five yards because almost everybody in college football would kick nothing but touchbacks… and you still would have all the strategies that you could have used in other circumstances.”